POEMS by Sir Patrick Moore, Terry Pratchett and Dr Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker, of Muppet Labs, are among the early entries in a contest to find Britain’s best scientific verse.

They have joined scientists such as Professor Monica Grady, of the Natural History Museum, and Professor Paul Davies, of the Australian Centre for Astrobiology, in a poetry competition celebrating Albert Einstein.

The “UNIVERSE” contest, organised by the British Association for the Advancement of Science, is part of Einstein Year, which marks 100 years since the publication of three seminal papers by the physicist.

Members of the public are invited to submit poems based on time, space and energy — the subjects of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity.

The poem by Sir Patrick, the astronomer, is the bleakest to date, entitled Futility and exploring death and eternity.

Professor Grady, a meteorite expert and a recent Royal Institution Christmas lecturer, has written a limerick about Mars, while Professor Davies, one of the world’s leading physicists, parodies Lord Byron’s The Destruction Of Sennacherib in which, instead of the Assyrian, “Einstein came down like a wolf on the fold”.

Terry Pratchett, the author of the Discworld fantasy novels, offers a humorous poem about multiple universes. Dr Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker sing the praises of physics.

Roland Jackson, chief executive of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, said: “Einstein’s Theory of Relativity was one of the most important theories of the 20th century. We want to bring out the beauty and complexity of the physical world through poetry.”

Entries for the competition must be submitted by February 11, and must be no more than 40 lines long. There are five age groups: 4 to 7 years, 8 to 11 years, 12 to 15 years, 16 to 18 years and adults. The best entry in each category will win a telescope appropriate to the age group.

Postal entries should be sent to: ‘Universe Competition’, c/o Joanna Rooke, Wellcome Wolfson Building, 165 Queens Gate, London, SW7 5HE. Poems can also be submitted online at www1.the-ba.net/poems

FUTILITY

The deep futility of all ephemeral things
Which stir the soul to unimagined dreams
Of Brussels sprouts, and spinach in the snow.
The birds’ shrill call in the translucent drawn
To embryonic beetles, and pale moths
Which hide their heads in the shallow troughs of earth,
Naked and fearful, as the world awakes
To thought transcendent life, and cosmic death.
The earthworm, crawling to his nameless tomb
All energy dispersed, to form new creeds
New auras of the spirits of the wild,
In the deep pool of life, which ceaseless flows
Through endless time and space, in rhythmic praise
Of all creative impulses, which dwarf
The puny concepts of the human mind.
All, all, shall pass into oblivion . . .

SIR PATRICK MOORE

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