Tom Lehrer — Lobachevsky

Who made me the genius I am today The mathematician that others all quote? Who's the professor that made me that way The greatest that ever got chalk on his coat? One man deserves the credit One man deserves the blame And Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name Oy! Nicolai Ivanovich Lobach... I am never forget the day I first meet the great Lobachevsky In one word he told me secret of success in mathematics: Plagiarize Plagiarize! Let no one else's work evade your eyes Remember why the good Lord made your eyes So don't shade your eyes But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize Only be sure always to call it please "research" And ever since I meet this man My life is not the same And Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name Oy! Nicolai Ivanovich Lobach... I am never forget the day I am given first original paper to write It was on analytic and algebraic topology Of locally Euclidean metrizations Of infinitely differentiable Riemannian manifolds Bozhe moy! This I know from nothing What I'm going to do I think of great Lobachevsky and get idea - haha! I have a friend in Minsk Who has a friend in Pinsk Whose friend in Omsk Has friend in Tomsk With friend in Akmolinsk His friend in Alexandrovsk Has friend in Petropavlovsk Whose friend somehow is solving now The problem in Dnepropetrovsk And when his work is done Haha! Begins the fun From Dnepropetrovsk to Petropavlovsk By way of Iliysk and over Novorossiysk To Alexandrovsk to Akmolinsk To Tomsk to Omsk To Pinsk to Minsk To me the news will run Yes, to me the news will run! And then I write by morning, night And afternoon, and pretty soon My name in Dnepropetrovsk is cursed When he finds out I published first! And who made me a big success And brought me wealth and fame? Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name Oy! Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachev... I am never forget the day my first book is published Every chapter I stole from somewhere else Index I copy from old Vladivostok telephone directory This book was sensational! Pravda - well, Pravda - Pravda said: Zhil byl korol' kogda-to, Pri nem blokha zhila ("It stinks") But Izvestia! Izvestia said: Ya idu kuda sam tsar' idet peshkom ("It stinks") Metro-Goldwyn-Moskva buys the movie rights for six million rubles Changing title to 'The Eternal Triangle' With Ingrid Bergman playing part of hypotenuse And who deserves the credit? And who deserves the blame? Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name! Oy!