A song about chemistry, with lyrics by the president of Peking University, became one of the most downloaded tunes on the mainland this week - a first for a song about science.
Entitled Chemistry Is You, Chemistry Is Me, the three-minute song by Professor Zhou Qifeng went to No 2 yesterday in the chart at Baidu.com, the mainland's biggest search engine, topping Jay Chou's hit Battle Between Heaven And Earth.
But most people listened to the song and passed it on to their friends because they could not believe their ears. While some scientists pointed out a few technical flaws in the lyrics, most critics aimed their fire at the song's linguistic ineptitude. Zhou might have mastered chemical reactions, one critic said, but he had no command of the Chinese language.
Performed by a chorus of Peking University students at the National Grand Theatre in May to celebrate the International Year of Chemistry, the song, set to a classical score, tries to glorify the role of chemistry in almost every aspect of life.
'Parents deliver us ... as a chemical process,' the lyrics say. 'Memory and thinking need to be described as a chemical process. Oh, chemistry, no wonder you are so hot.'
Professor Li Lei , a researcher at the State Key Laboratory of Reproductive Biology, said in Beijing yesterday that while he appreciated Zhou's attempt to publicise the importance of chemistry, as a biologist he worried that the song would mislead the public with an over-simplified explanation of sex.
