fic-dbsk-Educational Measures
Title: Educational Measures[1]
Author: virdant
Length: 1415 words; one-shot
Rating: G-PG
Genre: Crack, Humor, physics, crack
Pairing: none. Good ol' gen-fic.
Summary: “If you're going to name our title track "energy is equal to mass times times the speed of light squared," you might as well add a track called 'force is equal to mass times acceleration.'” TVXQ's new image is a little... unique.
Warning: Lots of physics. All explained, of course.
Notes: For yuxo, even if she doesn't like physics. So much thanks to upessimist for all the physics help! ♥
Educational Measures
“We are not singing about that,” Changmin huffed for the third time as he took in their latest album's track list. “Absolutely not.”
“It's a perfectly decent song,” Yunho repeated dully for the seventh time. He had expected resistance from the others, but not Changmin. Changmin was smart. He would have thought that Changmin would actually appreciate the new image management was making them take. Jaejoong had actually stormed out of the room the second he had heard. Yunho wasn't looking forward to confronting Jaejoong. Not for the first time, he wondered why he had ever wanted to be a pop star, let along be the leader of a boyband.
Changmin humphed in offense.
Yunho ignored Changmin. He turned to Yoochun and Junsu, both staring at the lyrics of one of the songs. “Any questions?” he asked, begging every single deity, whether he believed in them or not, to be on his side for once.
“Even though it offends the right side of my brain[2], I suppose this song is acceptable,” Yoochun muttered as he stared at the lyrics thoughtfully.
Junsu didn't say anything, just stared at the lyrics. Yunho wondered if Junsu's brain had shut down. Yunho's had blanked spectacularly for a good solid minute when he heard their new image.
Yunho sighed in relief. Now there was only Jaejoong to deal with. Hopefully he'd be able to persuade Jaejoong to cooperate.
As if on cue, Jaejoong wandered back into the room, his thickest glasses frames perched on his nose. “Do these make me look fat?”
*
Changmin had reluctantly agreed to participate fully in their anticipated new album. “I suppose it's a decent topic,” he had muttered. Reluctantly. Very reluctantly. He hadn't been particularly enthusiastic about any of the songs. Nor was he enthused by the tentative choreography that had been designed.
Yoochun, on the other hand, was diving headfirst into the songs being written. He was already talking enthusiastically to the various physics students who were helping to write the lyrics. He had several ideas, and was actually writing the lyrics to one of the songs, about gravity, but Yoochun was insisting it be named “Fallin.'”
Yunho wasn't certain what the mutters of 'G,' 'M,' and 'R,' meant, but Yoochun seemed to know what he was doing-“You can't just change that! It's a universal constant!”-or maybe not. Yunho sighed and cradled his head gingerly.[3]
Yunho didn't want to think about Junsu's reaction.
Actually, Yunho didn't want to think about Jaejoong's reaction.
He wasn't certain that their stylists' budget could take Jaejoong's various glasses frames selections. He really wasn't.
He sighed. He really hoped management knew what they were doing.
*
Yunho groaned and wished that he didn't have to wake up.
He could already hear Changmin declaring that he wouldn't sing whatever song they were recording today. In bed, he racked his brains for the title. It was a rap song, he remembered. Something involving a girl named Alice?[4]
It had a horrible choreography too.
Yunho groaned again.
“Eureka!” Junsu squeaked from outside. There was a distinctive pattering, like Junsu was practicing their routine for their intro dance track. “Ow! Changmin! You should respect your hyung!”
Yunho whimpered. And that was Junsu's head meeting a grumpy Changmin. He really didn't want to wake up.
*
“If you're going to name our title track "energy is equal to mass times times the speed of light squared," you might as well add a track called 'force is equal to mass times acceleration,'” Changmin said scornfully. “At least Newton's second law is actually used more than Einstein's energy equation.”[5]
Yunho looked at the tentative track list in front of him. So that was what that E=mc^2 thing was? Energy is equal to mass times the speed of light squared? It sounded so much... nerdier than Yunho had expected.
Well, that was their new image, wasn't it? Yunho scrambled to remember management's reasoning. Something about encouraging teenagers to pursue an education in science. Despite the fact that none of them were scientists. What had management been thinking? Yunho wailed desperately in his head. All they had managed to do was make Changmin all mean and upset.
Changmin glared at Yunho, and Yunho remembered that time years ago when Changmin was cute and didn't disrespect his hyung-deul and kissed kitties.
Yunho looked back down at the track list. Maybe they could have Changmin cuddle a kitten in the song titled 'Schrödinger and his Cat.'[6]
*
At Changmin's request, Yoochun and Jaejoong set to work writing a song to be titled 'F=ma.' Changmin had even wanted little arrow signs on top of the 'F' and 'a,' but management had explained that that type of notation would be too complicated when it came to printing track lists. Changmin had delivered a scathing lecture on vectors and magnitude-Yunho wondered if maybe staying in earthquake territory was messing with Changmin's brain-but had eventually been mollified by reassurances that the difference would be addressed in a song of its own.
Yunho was then recruited to help choreograph a dance for their newest dance-track “Vectors, not Magnitudes.”
“Junsu-yah,” Yunho gasped desperately as he guzzled water, “what are you doing?” Yunho himself had just gotten out of choreography. As far as he knew, Yoochun and Jaejoong were working with Changmin on “F=ma;” he was surprised to realize that he hadn't been paying much attention to Junsu. With Changmin protesting almost every song they've recorded so far, his focus had been occupied entirely on Changmin.
“I was just thinking that we should do some acapella[7],” Junsu said thoughtfully.
Yunho blinked. He hadn't even thought of acapella, Changmin having taken up almost all of his mental facilities. “That's a good idea,” he managed, “I'll tell management.”
Junsu nodded, humming as he walked away to practice the choreography for “Resistance and Capacitance,” a complicated dance involving complex circuitry.[8]
Yunho smiled. At least Junsu was taking this album seriously. Not like... other people.
“Yunho-yah, there you are,” Jaejoong exclaimed as he sauntered into Yunho's vision. Yunho desperately hoped that Jaejoong only had a comment about composition and wasn't merely the messenger of another disgusted rant by Changmin about how “Red and Blue” wasn't an accurate representation of the Doppler effect.[9]
Jaejoong held up two pairs of glasses. “Which do you think would look better?” he asked, modeling the heavy black frames and preening.
Yunho stared. They were exactly the same! Except one of the glasses made Jaejoong's eyes bigger. How did that work out? Changmin probably had some sort of explanation for that, but he didn't want to sit through a lecture on indexes of refraction[10] or whatever.
“Jaejoong,” he began, wondering how to approach this topic delicately, lest he injure Jaejoong's feelings. He gabbled soundlessly for a second before he simply gave up. “First one made you look fat.”
*
Changmin was sulking.
Yunho sighed.
Yunho supposed that Yoochun was tinkling away on the keyboard with Junsu in another room. He really didn't want to know what song Changmin had persuaded Yoochun to write this time. At least Yoochun and Junsu were still nice. Yunho clung to small mercies.
Jaejoong was very deliberately not-talking to Yunho.
It had been several months, and they had barely made headway with this album. Of course, considering that with their other albums, Changmin had cooperated with management instead of protesting every other song-Yunho wasn't certain how they had managed to record “Big Bang Theory” so quickly, but he supposed that Changmin just was in a good mood. Maybe. That good mood hadn't carried over to “Inertia.” But at least it had come back for “Wave Like Particles.”[11] Changmin had even waved! Like a particle, Yunho guessed. He didn't know.
How did particles wave?
“What exactly do you have against the album?” Yunho finally whimpered at Changmin. He gave up, burying his face in his hands and whimpering. If only Changmin could simply put him out of his misery.
Changmin stared at him as if Yunho was an idiot. “Hyung,” he said and Yunho winced at the sarcasm. “62% of these songs are about classical physics.[12]”
Yunho bit his lip. “That's the point,” he said weakly, not really understanding Changmin (or wanting to know when Changmin had calculated a percentage). Their new image was about physics wasn't it? Changmin had been perfectly willing to sing about Schrödinger and his cat. And about how hard it was to find Mr. Werner Heisenberg[13]. And about planets being formed with bangs. And...
Changmin shot Yunho a look of withering scorn.
Yunho withered appropriately. “Bwah?” he managed.
“How could you not know this?” Changmin sniffed. “Classical physics so pre-1905.”
End.
Notes: Before I get started on the footnotes, I would like to display for your enjoyment the tracklist. This took a good 30 minutes to work out with upessimist, and was very carefully determined to include a decent range of all the various aspects of physics. Some of these songs actually exist, and were shamefully ganked for the purpose of this fic. Links are included for those interested (and I do recommend those songs. They're good.) Some other songs are merely uh. references. lol.
The Track list
1. Eureka! [Intro]
2. E=mc^2 [Title Track]
3. Red and Blue (The Doppler Effect)
4. Nuclear Fusion in the Stars
5. F=ma
6. Schrödinger and his Cat
7. Big Bang Theory
8. The Large Hadron Rap
9. Vectors, not Magnitudes
10. Fallin' [Gravity]
11. Inertia
12. Momentum
13. Partition Function, Partition like it's 1999 (Party like it's 1999)
14. Resistance and Capacitance
15. Wave-like Particles
16. Where in the World is Werner Heisenberg? [Bonus Track]
Footnotes
I shall now reference all my nerdy references. All of them. I'm sorry I'm such a nerd actually.
[1] Educational Measures: This is a really bad joke. Measures refers to both the musical measures and also measure in physics. Sorry. I like random puns.
[2] Right side of my brain: As in the artistic side. The left side is the logical side.
[3] The equation for gravitational force is (Gm1m2)/(r^2) where G is the universal gravitational constant.
[4] Alice: That's actually referencing the lyrics of The Large Hadron Rap "ALICE looks at collisions of lead ions." In this case, ALICE is a giant machine, not exactly a girl. Oh Yunho.
[5] F=ma is used more than E=mc^2. Truth. In fact, the first quarter/semester of physics could typically be named "F=ma." Einstein's just too famous for his own good. Poor Newton doesn't get as much attention as he should.
[6] Schrodinger's cat which is a zombie. Enough said.
[7] acapella refers to this collection of acapella songs about physics which helped inspire this fic.
[8] Resistors and capacitors are used in circuts.
[9] Red and Blue refers to the redshift or blue shift which is used to measure velocities that galaxies are receeding or approaching our galaxy. It's a part of the Doppler effect which is actually why police sirens change pitch as they approach you. Listen to the song! :)
[10] Indexes of refraction, while they don't have a song, are why things look bigger or at weird angles through glass or water or the like.
[11] Wave-like particles are a part of quantum mechanics, which basically states that particles have wave-like attributes.
[12] Classical as opposed to quantum physics.
[13] Refering to Mr. Werner Heisenberg and his uncertainty principle which basically states that you can't know where an electrion is exactly.
On that note, concrit please. Please! Did the physics work for you? Did the fic work for you? what didn't you like?
Author: virdant
Length: 1415 words; one-shot
Rating: G-PG
Genre: Crack, Humor, physics, crack
Pairing: none. Good ol' gen-fic.
Summary: “If you're going to name our title track "energy is equal to mass times times the speed of light squared," you might as well add a track called 'force is equal to mass times acceleration.'” TVXQ's new image is a little... unique.
Warning: Lots of physics. All explained, of course.
Notes: For yuxo, even if she doesn't like physics. So much thanks to upessimist for all the physics help! ♥
Educational Measures
“We are not singing about that,” Changmin huffed for the third time as he took in their latest album's track list. “Absolutely not.”
“It's a perfectly decent song,” Yunho repeated dully for the seventh time. He had expected resistance from the others, but not Changmin. Changmin was smart. He would have thought that Changmin would actually appreciate the new image management was making them take. Jaejoong had actually stormed out of the room the second he had heard. Yunho wasn't looking forward to confronting Jaejoong. Not for the first time, he wondered why he had ever wanted to be a pop star, let along be the leader of a boyband.
Changmin humphed in offense.
Yunho ignored Changmin. He turned to Yoochun and Junsu, both staring at the lyrics of one of the songs. “Any questions?” he asked, begging every single deity, whether he believed in them or not, to be on his side for once.
“Even though it offends the right side of my brain[2], I suppose this song is acceptable,” Yoochun muttered as he stared at the lyrics thoughtfully.
Junsu didn't say anything, just stared at the lyrics. Yunho wondered if Junsu's brain had shut down. Yunho's had blanked spectacularly for a good solid minute when he heard their new image.
Yunho sighed in relief. Now there was only Jaejoong to deal with. Hopefully he'd be able to persuade Jaejoong to cooperate.
As if on cue, Jaejoong wandered back into the room, his thickest glasses frames perched on his nose. “Do these make me look fat?”
*
Changmin had reluctantly agreed to participate fully in their anticipated new album. “I suppose it's a decent topic,” he had muttered. Reluctantly. Very reluctantly. He hadn't been particularly enthusiastic about any of the songs. Nor was he enthused by the tentative choreography that had been designed.
Yoochun, on the other hand, was diving headfirst into the songs being written. He was already talking enthusiastically to the various physics students who were helping to write the lyrics. He had several ideas, and was actually writing the lyrics to one of the songs, about gravity, but Yoochun was insisting it be named “Fallin.'”
Yunho wasn't certain what the mutters of 'G,' 'M,' and 'R,' meant, but Yoochun seemed to know what he was doing-“You can't just change that! It's a universal constant!”-or maybe not. Yunho sighed and cradled his head gingerly.[3]
Yunho didn't want to think about Junsu's reaction.
Actually, Yunho didn't want to think about Jaejoong's reaction.
He wasn't certain that their stylists' budget could take Jaejoong's various glasses frames selections. He really wasn't.
He sighed. He really hoped management knew what they were doing.
*
Yunho groaned and wished that he didn't have to wake up.
He could already hear Changmin declaring that he wouldn't sing whatever song they were recording today. In bed, he racked his brains for the title. It was a rap song, he remembered. Something involving a girl named Alice?[4]
It had a horrible choreography too.
Yunho groaned again.
“Eureka!” Junsu squeaked from outside. There was a distinctive pattering, like Junsu was practicing their routine for their intro dance track. “Ow! Changmin! You should respect your hyung!”
Yunho whimpered. And that was Junsu's head meeting a grumpy Changmin. He really didn't want to wake up.
*
“If you're going to name our title track "energy is equal to mass times times the speed of light squared," you might as well add a track called 'force is equal to mass times acceleration,'” Changmin said scornfully. “At least Newton's second law is actually used more than Einstein's energy equation.”[5]
Yunho looked at the tentative track list in front of him. So that was what that E=mc^2 thing was? Energy is equal to mass times the speed of light squared? It sounded so much... nerdier than Yunho had expected.
Well, that was their new image, wasn't it? Yunho scrambled to remember management's reasoning. Something about encouraging teenagers to pursue an education in science. Despite the fact that none of them were scientists. What had management been thinking? Yunho wailed desperately in his head. All they had managed to do was make Changmin all mean and upset.
Changmin glared at Yunho, and Yunho remembered that time years ago when Changmin was cute and didn't disrespect his hyung-deul and kissed kitties.
Yunho looked back down at the track list. Maybe they could have Changmin cuddle a kitten in the song titled 'Schrödinger and his Cat.'[6]
*
At Changmin's request, Yoochun and Jaejoong set to work writing a song to be titled 'F=ma.' Changmin had even wanted little arrow signs on top of the 'F' and 'a,' but management had explained that that type of notation would be too complicated when it came to printing track lists. Changmin had delivered a scathing lecture on vectors and magnitude-Yunho wondered if maybe staying in earthquake territory was messing with Changmin's brain-but had eventually been mollified by reassurances that the difference would be addressed in a song of its own.
Yunho was then recruited to help choreograph a dance for their newest dance-track “Vectors, not Magnitudes.”
“Junsu-yah,” Yunho gasped desperately as he guzzled water, “what are you doing?” Yunho himself had just gotten out of choreography. As far as he knew, Yoochun and Jaejoong were working with Changmin on “F=ma;” he was surprised to realize that he hadn't been paying much attention to Junsu. With Changmin protesting almost every song they've recorded so far, his focus had been occupied entirely on Changmin.
“I was just thinking that we should do some acapella[7],” Junsu said thoughtfully.
Yunho blinked. He hadn't even thought of acapella, Changmin having taken up almost all of his mental facilities. “That's a good idea,” he managed, “I'll tell management.”
Junsu nodded, humming as he walked away to practice the choreography for “Resistance and Capacitance,” a complicated dance involving complex circuitry.[8]
Yunho smiled. At least Junsu was taking this album seriously. Not like... other people.
“Yunho-yah, there you are,” Jaejoong exclaimed as he sauntered into Yunho's vision. Yunho desperately hoped that Jaejoong only had a comment about composition and wasn't merely the messenger of another disgusted rant by Changmin about how “Red and Blue” wasn't an accurate representation of the Doppler effect.[9]
Jaejoong held up two pairs of glasses. “Which do you think would look better?” he asked, modeling the heavy black frames and preening.
Yunho stared. They were exactly the same! Except one of the glasses made Jaejoong's eyes bigger. How did that work out? Changmin probably had some sort of explanation for that, but he didn't want to sit through a lecture on indexes of refraction[10] or whatever.
“Jaejoong,” he began, wondering how to approach this topic delicately, lest he injure Jaejoong's feelings. He gabbled soundlessly for a second before he simply gave up. “First one made you look fat.”
*
Changmin was sulking.
Yunho sighed.
Yunho supposed that Yoochun was tinkling away on the keyboard with Junsu in another room. He really didn't want to know what song Changmin had persuaded Yoochun to write this time. At least Yoochun and Junsu were still nice. Yunho clung to small mercies.
Jaejoong was very deliberately not-talking to Yunho.
It had been several months, and they had barely made headway with this album. Of course, considering that with their other albums, Changmin had cooperated with management instead of protesting every other song-Yunho wasn't certain how they had managed to record “Big Bang Theory” so quickly, but he supposed that Changmin just was in a good mood. Maybe. That good mood hadn't carried over to “Inertia.” But at least it had come back for “Wave Like Particles.”[11] Changmin had even waved! Like a particle, Yunho guessed. He didn't know.
How did particles wave?
“What exactly do you have against the album?” Yunho finally whimpered at Changmin. He gave up, burying his face in his hands and whimpering. If only Changmin could simply put him out of his misery.
Changmin stared at him as if Yunho was an idiot. “Hyung,” he said and Yunho winced at the sarcasm. “62% of these songs are about classical physics.[12]”
Yunho bit his lip. “That's the point,” he said weakly, not really understanding Changmin (or wanting to know when Changmin had calculated a percentage). Their new image was about physics wasn't it? Changmin had been perfectly willing to sing about Schrödinger and his cat. And about how hard it was to find Mr. Werner Heisenberg[13]. And about planets being formed with bangs. And...
Changmin shot Yunho a look of withering scorn.
Yunho withered appropriately. “Bwah?” he managed.
“How could you not know this?” Changmin sniffed. “Classical physics so pre-1905.”
End.
Notes: Before I get started on the footnotes, I would like to display for your enjoyment the tracklist. This took a good 30 minutes to work out with upessimist, and was very carefully determined to include a decent range of all the various aspects of physics. Some of these songs actually exist, and were shamefully ganked for the purpose of this fic. Links are included for those interested (and I do recommend those songs. They're good.) Some other songs are merely uh. references. lol.
The Track list
1. Eureka! [Intro]
2. E=mc^2 [Title Track]
3. Red and Blue (The Doppler Effect)
4. Nuclear Fusion in the Stars
5. F=ma
6. Schrödinger and his Cat
7. Big Bang Theory
8. The Large Hadron Rap
9. Vectors, not Magnitudes
10. Fallin' [Gravity]
11. Inertia
12. Momentum
13. Partition Function, Partition like it's 1999 (Party like it's 1999)
14. Resistance and Capacitance
15. Wave-like Particles
16. Where in the World is Werner Heisenberg? [Bonus Track]
Footnotes
I shall now reference all my nerdy references. All of them. I'm sorry I'm such a nerd actually.
[1] Educational Measures: This is a really bad joke. Measures refers to both the musical measures and also measure in physics. Sorry. I like random puns.
[2] Right side of my brain: As in the artistic side. The left side is the logical side.
[3] The equation for gravitational force is (Gm1m2)/(r^2) where G is the universal gravitational constant.
[4] Alice: That's actually referencing the lyrics of The Large Hadron Rap "ALICE looks at collisions of lead ions." In this case, ALICE is a giant machine, not exactly a girl. Oh Yunho.
[5] F=ma is used more than E=mc^2. Truth. In fact, the first quarter/semester of physics could typically be named "F=ma." Einstein's just too famous for his own good. Poor Newton doesn't get as much attention as he should.
[6] Schrodinger's cat which is a zombie. Enough said.
[7] acapella refers to this collection of acapella songs about physics which helped inspire this fic.
[8] Resistors and capacitors are used in circuts.
[9] Red and Blue refers to the redshift or blue shift which is used to measure velocities that galaxies are receeding or approaching our galaxy. It's a part of the Doppler effect which is actually why police sirens change pitch as they approach you. Listen to the song! :)
[10] Indexes of refraction, while they don't have a song, are why things look bigger or at weird angles through glass or water or the like.
[11] Wave-like particles are a part of quantum mechanics, which basically states that particles have wave-like attributes.
[12] Classical as opposed to quantum physics.
[13] Refering to Mr. Werner Heisenberg and his uncertainty principle which basically states that you can't know where an electrion is exactly.
On that note, concrit please. Please! Did the physics work for you? Did the fic work for you? what didn't you like?