Monte Carlo and Pi
About This Song
Words © 2015, Anne Prather
Song History and Tune
Dedicated to the fabulous radiotherapy team at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance at Northwest HospitalDecember 2015
To the tune of “American Pie by Don MacLean”
About the Lyrics
I don't want to be cutely mysterious about the words to this song, so here is the explanation.
Mosaic is the name of the software used to design treatment plans and control the linear accelerators that administer the radiation. To understand this name, think of using an inverse square function to accurately target large curved areas within narrow tolerances. The result is a mosaic.
Monaco is the name of the software medical physicists use to assure us that none of the treatment plans designed by Mosaic violate any physical laws.
In a radiation oncology team, the doctor designates the dosage and target areas where radiation is to be administered. Then, with the help of Mosaic and a dosimetrist, the doctor designs a targeting scheme that nails the target area while not nailing anything immediately adjascent to that area unintentionally. The method used to develop these plans is the Monte Carlo method; the physicist is there to assure that all treatment plans fall within certain tolerances (this is the meaning of the line “Physics is a game of chance”. The lines about dynamic stochasticity and chaotic serendipity also refer to the Monte Carlo method.
The tekkies among you all know that Murphy's Law states that anything that can go wrong will go wrong; the Murphy cited in the song is that Murphy.
Intro
RAD-ONC TEAM MEMBER:
A long, long time ago
I can still remember
Just how physics used to make me smile
And I knew if I had the chance
That I could make electrons dance
And my patients would be healthy for a while
But cables whirring made me shiver
With every X-ray I'd deliver
Murphy lies in waiting
Havoc anticipating
I can't remember if I sighed
When the screen turned blue
And the system died
But fury touched me deep inside
The day Mosaic died
Chorus
Bye bye Motte Carlo and pi
What the fields have revealed
We'll get back by and by
Meanwhile we'll sit here drinking whiskey and rye
Saying “This won't be the day that we die.
This will never be the day that we die”
Verses
RADIATION THERAPIST:
The patient's lying there in one place
Her brain and clothing lost in space
With no time left to start again
So come on, Jeff be nimble and Rudy quick
Give that laser yet another flick
'Cause lasers are the patient's truest friend
And as we watched her lying there
Murphy caught us unaware
No angel born in Hell
Could break old Murphy's spell
As the patient stared at us in fright
And our images winked out of sight
I saw Murphy laughing with delight
The day Mosaic died.
Chorus
PATIENT:
Did you read the manual of
That linear accelerator up above
I bet you know it really well.
Can you track all its failure modes,
Its missing bits and its error codes?
Can you recreate the stories that they tell?
RAD-ONC TEAM MEMBER:
Well we're about solving problems here
So we'll meet Murphy without fear.
We'll track each error down
And run Murphy's law to ground!
I was a forty-something broncin' buck
When the ultimate disaster struck
And I prayed to all the gods of luck
The day Mosaic died.
Chorus
PHYSICIST:
On vacation in Monaco
Where Monte Carlo runs the show
And physics is a game of chance
The physicists were called back home
To return the system to its own
With quality and security enhanced.
With dynamic stochasticity
And chaotic serendipity
We played Murphy for a fool
And we won this cyber-duel
DOSIMETRIST:
And as Murphy tried to take the field
The dosimetrists refused to yield.
Do you recall what was revealed
The day Mosaic died?
Chorus
Outtro
RAD-ONC TEAM MEMBER:
Our patient that day sang the blues
But she shared with us our happy news
The system's back online you know
And I sat down at the screen once more
Where I'd sat so many times before
And the prompts there
Said the software's good to go
In the waiting room the patients cheered
Murphy cried and the team all jeered
Murphy's spell was broken,
Still not a word was spoken.
And the three men I admire most,
The Father, Son and the Holy Ghost
They probably helped us out the most
The day Mosaic died.
Final Chorus
Bye bye Monte Carlo and pi
What the fields have revealed
We’ll get back by and by
Meanwhile we’ll sit her drinking whiskey and rye
This will never be the day that we die.