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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Galaxy Song | 1/2 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_Song | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T07:42:46.887043+00:00 | kb-cron |
"Galaxy Song" is a Monty Python song written by Eric Idle and John Du Prez. The song first appeared in the 1983 film Monty Python's The Meaning of Life and was later released on the album Monty Python Sings. The song was released as a single in the UK on 27 June 1983 when it reached No. 77 in the charts and again on 2 December 1991 as a follow-up to the successful reissue of Always Look on the Bright Side of Life. In 2014 the song was featured in the live stage show Monty Python Live (Mostly) which was followed by another single release on 13 April 2015, this time in collaboration with Stephen Hawking.
== Premise and synopsis == The song originally debuted during the comedy sketch "Live Organ Transplants". The paramedic (John Cleese), upon failing to persuade Mrs. Brown (Terry Jones) to donate her liver, opens the refrigerator doors to reveal a man wearing a pink morning suit (Eric Idle). The man accompanies Mrs. Brown through outer space singing various statistics about the galaxy. The upshot of the song (which follows a synthesized instrumental montage that, in the movie, is accompanied by a computer-animated picture of a woman being impregnated and giving birth to the universe) is that in the grand scheme of the universe, the likelihood of Mrs. Brown's existence was almost zero, but that she should "pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space, 'cause there's bugger all down here on Earth". The singer returns to the refrigerator, at which point Mrs. Brown admits that the singer convinced her to hand over her liver.
== Accuracy of astronomical figures == The lyrics include a number of astronomical quantities, most of which are accurate to within one or two significant figures. A few statements are only approximately correct or have liberties with definitions, likely to fit within the meter of the song.
Idle sings that the Earth is "revolving at nine hundred miles an hour". The current estimate for the rotational speed at the equator is appr. 1674.4 km/h, appr. 904 nautical miles/hr or appr. 1040 statute miles/hr. which for nautical miles is accurate to two significant figures. Idle gives the Earth's orbital speed as 19 miles (31 km) per second, which is accurate to two significant figures. Idle states that the Sun is "the source of all our power". In fact, there are three notable sources of electrical power which are not directly traceable to the Sun: 1) geothermal power, which is produced from geothermal energy, 2) Tidal Power, which uses tides resulting from the gravitational pull of the Moon on the Earth, and 3) nuclear power, which utilizes the radioactive decay of fissile elements. Ultimately, the vast majority of human-generated power is derived from the remains of photosynthetic plants extracted from the Earth's crust...the fossil fuels. Mr. Idle's ironic commentary is a truth. The other three power sources are available because of the Sun's influence on our early solar system. Idle's figures for the size of the Milky Way galaxy are roughly correct. He understates the speed at which the Sun orbits the "galactic central point" by an order of magnitude – the actual approximate average speed is 12,336,000 miles a day or 514,000 mph, as opposed to the speeds of "1 million miles a day" and "40,000 miles an hour" mentioned in the song (the latter was rendered in later performances as "400,000 miles an hour"). He gives an estimate accurate to one significant figure for the total time per orbit. This is "two hundred million years" according to the song, compared with accepted figures of 220 to 250 million years. The song says that we are "thirty thousand light years from galactic central point", again correct to within one significant figure of 25,000 light years from the centre of the Milky Way. The song also states that the galaxy is "a hundred thousand light years side to side". This would make the galactic radius 50,000 light years, which is accurate. Australian astrophysicist Bryan Gaensler has stated that Idle's estimation of the thickness of the Milky Way, at 16,000 light years, is more accurate than the official 'textbook' figure of 6,000 light years. However, the song's position on this was later confused by Idle's performance of the song in his Not the Messiah show (2007) where the figure he sings is only 6,000 light years. The reason for the confusion has since been explained in a message from Idle on the official Monty Python website. "There was some smug website pulling apart all my original figures for the song (written circa 1981) so for the 2003 Tour (or maybe 2000) I 'updated' them. Now you tell me I was right all along! Not sure where I got my figures originally but tell the bastards to make up their minds." The last verse of the song explains that the universe is expanding, and furthermore, that the speed of light is the "fastest speed there is". Idle's estimate of the speed of light is a relatively accurate one: 12 million miles per minute, versus the standard figure of about 11.16 million miles per minute. Contrary to what the verse implies, the expansion of the universe is not related to the speed of light, and it is in fact expanding much faster.
== Remake ==