Tom Lehrer - Decimal - The Frost Report

[FuyuAkiWorld]

I wiah this show was on DVD. PLEASE GOD!

[cowerme]

Frost has no comedy talent or claimed to but boy did he know talent when he saw it.

[artyzach]

oh my gosh this is so damn funny.

[Zedwhyx]

it's one oof those sayings that harldy anyone says.

[TheSquiglyPenguin]

KassemG?



[TheElectricDreamer93]

I love Tom Lehrer, but it's such a pain when you have "I've Got 2 1/2 Cents" in your head during an exam.

[bodybwan2be1]

...using you as guinea...I mean, 105 cent pigs. :D

[sockdrama]

How does he keep a straight face through this entire performance?

[rcbpiccolo]

I just spent half an hour trying to work this out mathematically and it all makes sense now!

[TheFMAgeneration]

Mr. Lehrer if you're out there...you're a fucking genius.

[MrsKuryakin]

Isn´t that thrilling?!! 

[twoaxis]

probably the most literate singer and performer of our century...

[GrahamChapman]

@twoaxis Probably, yes, but Tim Minchin is a worthy successor, according to me.

[MarkJSau]

@twoaxis whose century? :-)  Although he's still with us, Lehrer stopped performing well before the turn of the present century

[twoaxis]

@MarkJSau

ok, lets say centuries, nevertheless, he's a great performer...

[cjlllatt]

the funny thing is that that short song he does at the end i sing to myself all the time because his voice is awesome XD

[GregERobertson]

Wow . .didn't know David Frost was on the Frost report!! are the odds of that?

[Elric33239]

@GregERobertson If you read the closing credits, you would have thought that David Frost WAS "The Frost Report" with a lot of "contributors!"

[drtombell69]

Superb , i remember in Northumberland in 1971 Mrs Soulsby telling me aged 11 that she thought decimilisation was a great idea but it would never catch on in the country side !!!

[EarthianLifeForm]

Tom Lehrer is cool and kicks ass. Is he still alive? I hate it when I find out that someone new who is cool and makes me laugh is already dead.

[flashbackcaruso]

@EarthianLifeForm

Good news! He's still alive, although he retired from performing many years ago.

[anthraxman]

@flashbackcaruso According to wikipedia he "hangs out" around the UC Santa Cruz campus.

[fight779]

@EarthianLifeForm kinda like mitch hedgeberg

[tonan63]

@EarthianLifeForm still alive so far

[Shaun17170]

@EarthianLifeForm yeah me too man! it sucks ass. Like when discoverd to my my complete horror, That, Beetoven has been dead for 250 years??? But I wanted to see his next concert? Bummer!

[oxfordruse]

@EarthianLifeForm Even better news! There's this new thing called Google! Guess what: Tom Lehrer's on this awesome new thing called Wikipedia! Which I found by using that new Google thing!

[Potts132]

My country invented decimal currency and I'm even lost lol 

[WeShallBurnInHeck]

We swapped this for "Conduction junction???!?!!!?!"

[rainbowheydrich]

"I've got 2 and a half cents to last me all my life." LMAO!!!

I love Tom! <3 ^_^

[JoshhLyons]

He isn't just an amazing mathemetician/Scientish

He is also an amazing piano player, playing without even looking at the keys! Jesus, that's hard to do

[InuyashaTehSex]

"i have to go spend 5/12th of a cent"

Feels like i can relate with the economy the way it is, i know as a country weve had worse dips but its the worse in my lifetime so it feels pretty damn bad to me.

[rebelgrrlzine]

Genius, thank you for sharing.

[nevets4ever]

To paraphrase Chuck "Moses" Heston: "You'll have to pry the English system of measurement out of America's cold dead hands." Pretty much sums up the bullying/tough-guy/"no one will tell US what to do" sentimentality here in the USA. Thank goodness Ben Franklin got us on the decimal $ system when we were infants - otherwise anything that hints of or smells metric is considered a Euro-UN-commie conspiracy (unless of course it can be monetized - then we’d be clamoring for it!)

[silverandcopper]

@nevets4ever Bullying sentimentality? That's almost oxymoronic, especially when you're talking about a trend taking place on a societal level. The idea that any significant percentage of Americans views adoption of the metric system as a "commie conspiracy" is simply moronic, no oxy required. Sentimentality is a powerful force, and one that can certainly go a long way to impede necessary reforms, but c'mon....

[nevets4ever]

@silverandcopper -wow s&c you took my tongue and cheek more seriously than it was meant....anyway I've met lot's of folks who believe the conspiracy stuff.....seriously scary.

[silverandcopper]

@nevets4ever Quit hanging out with crazy people.  Do you live in Idaho? 'Cause you know, most places aren't like that.

[TnseWlms]

240 was still much more divisible than 100. As James Shelley said, "I'm the last one left who still remembers that six and eightpence was a third of a pound."

[crazypianolady]

I love how he's basically just having a conversation whilst playing the piano at the same time. Which is VERY hard to do!

[cj0078]

I understand this but this is vary funny.

[rongrite]

i measure in centminches.

[evaniax]

Whenever I hear about the old British currency system, I can understand how everyone feels WTF about the US measurement system... lol.

[SigmaSixxx]

@evaniax: Uh. . . the US measurement system is the old British Imperial system, and you are the only country (other than Liberia) that still uses it. The WTF is perfectly justified.

[MarkJSau]

@SigmaSixxx Yes, except that US pints are 16 fluid ounces rather than 20 ounces (the Imperial pint), so US gallons are smaller than Imperial gallons. So if a barrel of oil - the worldwide standard for the price of oil - is defined in gallons, by reference to which standard gallon??? While the USA has hung on to the old (British) way of measuring in feet, inches, miles, etc., it's still not consistent! Here's hoping SI finally catches on sometime soon

[AJohnnieCanuck]

@MarkJSau To put too fine a point on it, there are 1.2009 US gallons or pints in an Imperial gallon or pint. Yet, as you say, there are 20 oz in one pint and 16 in the other. 20/16 = 1.25. How to account for this?

It turns out there is about a 4% difference between the two ounce measures.

Makes for comedy gold, it seems.

[SatoTM3]

@SigmaSixxx your also the only country that inches gallons pounds yards miles feet al in one

bc its so easy >.>

1m³ = 1000 dm³ = 1000kg = 1000l water

now you do that in YOUR silly thingamajiggy please ?

[MrSpockify]

So you give him a fifty cent piece and hope for the best. xD

[scottleader]

why can`t they play these songs in school? it would help us learn

[TEMPmichaelhansen]

AWESOME!!!

[rosapluemchen]

has anyone the lyrics for this song? I'm not english, so it's hard for me to understand the mathematical expressions, especially the fractions...

[Arkelk2010]

@rosapluemchen Others have been doing the math with the system, but the old English monetary system had 12 pence (d) to the shilling (s) and 20 shillings to the pound (that funy L that's not on my keyboard). Lehrer's changing of guinea pigs to 105 cents pigs is from a guinea (used for special things like art works or other expensive items) is 21 shillings.

[wraithfreind]

now anyone else geting flashbacks of "new math"

lol =]

[tomwmloppe]

I was with you all the way up to ''Now five shillings''...

[NotEnoughProductions]

what if he taught like that, taking notes would be impossible ahah

[Lafayettebluesman]

Hee. I hate math but love these songs!

[Tigerboy83]

The thing with Lehrer's math ditties, is that they sound like gibberish to the untrained ear, but when you slow them down and rewind many times to catch it all, they're actually mathematically accurate - which is no surprise given that Lehrer was a math professor at Harvard no less.

[Snurdgerbly]

I was sure he had something wrong, but went back and listened again. Maybe he took a little poetic licence, but he's on the ball.

[Snurdgerbly]

I should say "on the money" nyuk nyuk.

[Snootwaller]

So true, in fact I would really not like the songs if they were truly mumbo-jumbo. There's no reason to imitate the confusion that math produces, the genuine math is confusing enough.

[SatoTM3]

same with the metric system vs the american system

you americans are such logical beings =D

[KhmerD0g]

bitch...

[barrusDemonPlucker]

I have had worse profs.

[throatwabbel]

Who said: "The Britains are adapting to the metric system - inch by inch" ? Mr Lehrer was just brilliant, anyway.

[ixnayonthetimmay]

In many ways, the US is already on the metric system, though most proud Americans don't know it. The old Imperial measurements are defined by their metric counterparts (one gallon is really just 3.78 liters, for example; says so right on the container). In scientific and government institutions, metric is used nearly exclusively, where in the private sector, both are used concurrently in most cases. At Walgreens, a 4" by 6" photo print is really a 100 mm by 150 mm print. It'll happen eventually!

[Snurdgerbly]

One country, 2 systems!  And a non-standard gallon, to boot!

[kgierz]

ummm...in a way yes...but at the same time noooo not really. think back a few years. there was this one american organization. not all that important...they send things up into space every once in a while...but who cares about that. anyway. they sent a rocket into space...but it crashed. Why? because the wonderful intelligent most brilliant scientists in america...incorrectly converted SI into metric units =]

[Elric33239]

Wow! A Tom Lehrer performance that I've never seen nor heard before! Thank you very much for posting a lost classic! I wish I saw it before I travelled to London last month!!

[Snurdgerbly]

Australia made the switch from fractional to decimal currency on February 14, 1966, and to metric measure in 1974. All roadsigns across the continent were changed overnight on July 1. For some reason, the Brits lagged way behind, despite their proximity to Europe.

[Snurdgerbly]

But what I don't understand is why the Americans staunchly retain the weights and measures of their former colonial masters (with the substitution of the smaller wine gallon for the imperial gallon), and not the rational system devised by their revolutionary allies, the French.

[Binerexis]

Aint broke, don't fix it.

[Snurdgerbly]

Yes, there's profit in confusion.

[Snurdgerbly]

It is broke. That's the point. That's why the civilised world abandoned it.

[JBFrenchhorn]

We like our feet and inches.

[Snurdgerbly]

JBFrenchhorn, some still pine for their £sd

[lexidizzle]

Sorry, in the 1960s and 70s, we were too busy putting men on the moon to bother with changing our road signs.

Metric/SI makes perfect sense for science and engineering, but for everyday use, Imperial is fine.

[Snurdgerbly]

"...but for everyday use, Imperial is fine." So, what's the total cost in pounds (£)of one hundred weight (cwt) of grain at 2 shillings, six pence (2/-6) a pound (lb)? Yeah, everyone loved the old system.

[akhen3sir]

Easy, 2 and 6 is an eighth of a quid, so your grain will cost 1/8 of 112lb = £14 0s 0d.

[Snurdgerbly]

Excellent, akhen3sir! You must be over 50!

[akhen3sir]

Actually I'm not :-)

I just have a passion for juggling fractions in my head, which (to me) is a hell of a lot easier than juggling decimals, plus I find there's a common "shape" to Imperial measures (hard to define) that SI doesn't have.

[Snurdgerbly]

That's a good point. I have a friend who makes a similar objection to the decimal system; the francional system is, to him, "more natural" or "comprehensible". Its day is over, though.

[akhen3sir]

Odd - YouTube seems to have swallowed my last comment. Try again:

"Its day is over" applies more to the ability of people to perform mental arithmetic I think. Once you've offloaded that to electronic calculators (with attendant rounding errors), the benefits of systems with bases having more factors than just 2 and 5 isn't as obvious.

[UKSazzy67]

I'm 41 years old and I haven't got an F***ing clue what your'e talking about. How on earth did people work things out in those days?

[akhen3sir]

@UKSazzy67 - was that a serious question? People worked things out using mental arithmetic :-)

Honestly, it just came naturally because our brains are really clever at learning patterns and doing simple fractional sums.

That skill's been lost since because decimal money and metric measures are all base-10 and don't divide up as neatly (not as many whole number factors of 10 as there are of, eg, 12).

[UKSazzy67]

Ehhh? What's that all about?

[Snurdgerbly]

Put simply, UKSazzy67, 12 can be divided evenly by 2, 3, 4 and 6, while 10 is only evenly divisible by 2 and 5.  This is the basis of the mental arithmatic akhen3sir demonstrated. If you were over 50, you would have had less exposure to digital calculators in school, so might have had some experience with that almost lost art. Imagine making change in £sd in a busy 1950s Sydney store! "17 shillings, 6 and a half pence out of a fiver, sir? No trouble......" No clue from the register, either.

[thechaos44]

....Well said!

[XiOjala]

It was easy. To use Snurdgerbly's example of how much change to give from a fiver for something costing 17s 6½d you first give them a ha'penny making it up to 17/7 then 5d making it up to 18s then two bob making it up to a quid then £4 (in notes). So it's £4-2-5½ change.

Simples!

[Snurdgerbly]

Ah, so you're saying there once was time when people had to use there brains for ordinary everyday transactions and it wasn't a problem for them. Will such wonderous times ever come again?

[Tiboroun]

The people who were using their brains were the ones buying shit the ones who couldn't were sorting out the change.

[Snurdgerbly]

You might be right, Tiboroun, but the people doing the buying had to be sure they were getting the right change. The cash registers then only recorded the value of the purchase, didn't tell the cashier how much change to give. The purchaser (now called merely "consumer") had to keep an eye on the cashier (now "checkout chick") to make sure there was no short-changing. People generally had to use their brains a lot more.

[moons160]

I don't get the joke

"penny wise the pound is foolish"

[JamesConnollyICA]

PENNY WISE AND POUND FOOLISH - "Overcareful about trivial things and undercareful about important ones. The literal image is of the person who fusses over small amounts of money to such an extent that he misses opportunities to save or make large amounts. But the figurative image goes way back; in 'The Historie of Foure-footed Beastes' (1607) Edward Topsell wrote: 'If by covetousnesse or negligence, one withdraw from them their ordinary foode,

[pdj1701]

It was a reference to the Australian Pound..

[hairwire]

He makes me want to do Math. And I hate math.

[freethinker1990]

Don't the British have a decimal system now? I guess his message got through to the highly intelligent British folk.

[stapler942]

As of 1971 (five year later!) they adopted the decimal system. Of course, their divisions of the pound in coins are slightly different than us North Americans: 1 penny, 2 pence, 5 pence, 10 pence, 20 pence, 50 pence.

[hairwire]

Are you insinuating that Tom Lehrer basically told the UK to go decimal and they did it?

I doubt that was it though, but, oh my GOD That would be the most amazing thing ever, and I would go round telling anybody who would listen. Mind you, I don't understand this, I grew up with the decimal system...although they used to have mahoosive 50 pence pieces back in the 80s.

[hognoxious]

It was all a scam to put prices up. Now get off my lawn!

[NegativeNick]

why does he sound like Chomsky?

[AKammunation]

cause they're both Jews?

[toddles822]

105-cent pigs. LOL

[TheDWhoIsTheKMan]

I think this the song that led to "new math"

there are some places where it is much the same to "new math". and it's about math too kinda.

[jordanbbuu]

that's it!

[rwhoover]

It's a reworking of "New math"

[TheDWhoIsTheKMan]

that's too bad because new math is much better

[BanjoBill427]

It is the other way around. New Math appeared on the 1965 album "That Was The Year That Was" (Having appeared on the TV show That was The Week That Was" the year before: 1964). The British Decimalization was Feb. 15, 1971, so this recording would have been from around that time. Dr. Lehrer was not against updating his songs (or rewriting, as in this case). I saw him live in 1967. He had a new verse to Who's Next, an updated "Just Look What's Become of You, Hubert" and the "GOP" song.

[TheDWhoIsTheKMan]

yeah rwhoover told me that already,I got it.

I said it's too bad because new math is much better.

so im going to say this to everyone who is reading this.

I got it new math is the old version! yes I know

okay!

btw this song sucks

[JBO0901]

@TheDWhoIsTheKMan

By the time I got here your 2 comments had been down-voted to invisibility. I don't think your staunch loyalty to the incomparable "New Math" should be subtracted from discussion. I offer my comforting view that the word "reworking" here has a focus, far from "re"-placement, as an endearing sense of TL enjoying "parody" (so what else is new?) but maybe of himself too,hint of a smile to himself as his piano entered a very familiar chorus from NM? Don't worry. It's for fun.

[sh0gun98]

he is awesome!!

[Potts132]

And there goes the pofit you made befor. Servs u right u greety thing

[MySerpentine]

Decimal currency is easier than old English currency was.

[deadjerusalem]

Anyone else think he looks a bit like Harrison Ford?

[dkt13]

Chevy Chase is what I thought.

[xavierrrr]

no?

[mayhemrw]

"I've got 6d and I'm as happy as a king!"

[keanelovah]

That man is a genius xD

[nerdydev]

this reminds me of new math

[homestarfan2008]

LOL. "Ridiculous decimal currency." This is why the system the US uses is wrong. There are eight ounces in a cup but there are 128 ounces in a gallon. And there are three teaspoons in a tablespoon! WTF! Use stuff based on tens.

[kmactane]

I totally agree. I was taught Metric about 7 times in as many years back when I was in grade school... and then they quit their plans to convert to Metric! I still can't find my way around cups and teaspoons, and can never figure out if an ounce is a unit of volume or of mass.

We need to quit messing around and finish what we started. Give me my meters and kilograms to go with my 2-liter drink bottles!

[Mathematician2]

I agree. I've lived with the US system all my life, but metric is so much easier to understand. I'm taking chemistry in high school right now and I'd say metric is the easiest thing to learn in that class.

[OofusTwillip]

The USA is one of only 3 non-metric countries in the whole world. In Canada, we're officially "metric", but we still use parts of the "old" system. Most small, independent fabric stores still sell by the yard, not the metre. And most of us (including me) have no idea what our heights & weights are in metric. We get our weather in metric, but most of our cooking is still done in cups, teaspoons and tablespoons, and baked in an oven at a certain degrees Fahrenheit.

[thebobierto]

The problem with changing from standard to metric is not really educational, it's not a very hard change to make, its economical. Imagine the costs of refitting every machine, road sign, pretty much everything. Sure you can do it slowly over time to minimize costs, and that's whats happening, but that doesn't change the price tag on it all.

[nawitus]

It's cheaper if everybody uses the same system, and you don't need to learn the real system (metric) when you learn science too.

[thebobierto]

The word cheaper is vague here, yes it will be cheaper in the very long term, but its a large investment to make in the short term. As you pointed out, the scientific community already made the switch, and its not hard to learn. The hard part is the infrastructure change of the whole country. Just think of programs that calculate standard, machines that were made to cut parts with standard in mind, every single road sign that says "20 miles", that's a huge investment. The learning is easy.

[OscarLiu24]

that's true until you run into Electromagnetism and other new subjects that arises after SI has been adopted by the scientific community. Then what originally simple equations with SI units are very funny looking if you have your length of wires in feet (imperial) but want to get voltages (SI) out. You must use all sorts of random conversion factors in your calculation. Also, this unit discrepency has caused at least one satellite to crash: Mars Climate Orbiter which costs 327 million US doller

[MarkJSau]

Hello OofusTwillip... from one who was aged only 10 when Australia went Metric in 1972, the old habits are hard to lose... when cooking I still tend to measure things in 'Imperial' measurements and mentally correct oven temperatures to Fahrenheit.. and my height and weight are definitely still measured the old way!

[xavierrrr]

agreed. im terrible lol i measure in cm when it comes to using a ruler. however i know my height in feet, my weight in stones, cooking in ounces and pounds!

[vanecaptures]

this makes me so happy~

[kennita728]

Wow -- how did I go all these years as a Lehrer fan and miss this one?!? (rhetorical)

[Mathematician2]

Wow, this strongly reminds me of his New Math song. Can't believe I haven't heard this Tom Lehrer song before.

[tjodolF2]

"I have to spend five twelfths of a cent".

I don't geddit, can someone enlighten me a little bit?

[cvirtue]

"Spend a penny" is an old euphemism for urinating. But the old penny became 5/12 of the new cent.

[columbusmozart]

Yes, the expression is "spend a penny"...public toilets in the UK at the time required you to insert a penny (the old 1d kind) to access the stall.

So, 5/12c=1d

[kyukido1stdan]

@columbusmozart 5/12c=takeing a crap?

[columbusmozart]

@kyukido1stdan

No: It used to cost 1d (old penny) to use the public toilet.

I think the joke (by cvirtue) was the conversion of 5/12 of a cent (US) = 1d (UK).

[Snootwaller]

Great!!!!