Rudolf Diesel
Last month, I announced a contest here in GeekDad. Now, the winners have been selected in the Practical Pyromaniac Clerihew Contest. The Practical Pyromaniac is a new book from Make Contributing Editor William Gurstelle.
As you may recall, a clerihew is a four line, eccentrically metered, rhyming biographical poem. Easy to write and fun to read, entrants were asked to write a clerihew that describes a famous scientist or other person, or event closely associated with fire.
The Winner:
Rudolf Diesel’s
As German as measles,
But his engine stayed mobile,
So his legacy’s global.
–Kelly Robinson
The Runners Up:
The Great London Fire
Destroyed St. Paul’s choir.
The nave and transepts were burned to sticks
On the 4th of September, 1666.
– Chris Kaiser
Catherine O’Leary’s cow
Would probably disavow
Her role in the blaze of ‘seventy-one…
Too bad the witness is Well Done.
– Erik Stearns
Well over a hundred entries were received. GeekDads and their families are enthusiastic poets! It was a difficult task selecting the winners because of the number of excellent entries. Points were awarded for topic relevance, style, and cleverness.
The following entries have been singled out for Special Mention:
The Philosopher Empedocles
Thought there were four elements, and these
Were earth and water, fire and air
He was wrong, *but* they made a square.
– Nick Muellerleile
Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford
Showed heat made when gun bored.
This example of friction,
a conservation of energy prediction.
– Ben Brockert
Baybars, Sultan of Egypt
Into his hand cannon, gunpowder tipped.
But how many klutzes lost a foot
shootin’ in the Battle of Ain Jalut?
– Elissa Malcohn
Mrs. O’Leary
Hated the theory
That it was her cow
That started that row.
– Yossef Mendelssohn
Thanks to William Crookes
And his love of science books,
We now have faithful records
Of Faraday’s Candle Lectures.
– Roger Kilbourne
Isaac Watts
Observed a lot.
He observed that observation
Is learning’s firm foundation.
– Michael Hahn
Had Herostratus
Gone on hiatus,
The shrine in Ephesus
Would not be in pieces.
– Brandon Burt
Sir Joseph Priestly
Looked at “airs” uniquely.
Phlogiston he spurned
And with O2 burned.
– Jim Fenwood
Antoine Lavoisier
Had a flawless dossier.
Hydrogen and oxygen he bred,
right until they chopped of his head.
– Ben Brockert
Sir Humphry Davy,
for miners so gravely
created a light
never to unexpectedly ignite.
– Jonathan Hammler
Are their more? You bet, there are, tons more! See them all at www.nfttu.com
