Dear Physics Community,

A week of grinding toward Fall.  In the Department, we are working through how to deliver graduate exams.  Today, we had a terrific 90-minute meeting with our Society of Physics Students (Anjali Nambrath, Jeffery Yu, Abby Stein, Sujay Kazi, and Debaditya Pramanik.  Guidance about the ICE rules for our first-year graduate students remains ambiguous, even as we try to figure out how to help them get here. We did finally get clarity on the Visitor Policy for Fall, i.e. don’t.

Physics

• Jobs – I received announcements from AAPT and ORNL.
• More jobs – an alum and friend called me.  He is with Liedos, which helps the federal, state, and local governments in various ways.  he was asking if I knew some close to graduating who would like to spend some time exploring at Liedos on a project involving shock waves, plasmas, and atmospheric physics.  Could be a graduate student, could be undergrad intern.  If this sounds interesting, let me know and I will put you in touch.
• This week, I learned from Tran, that Dave Jackson, who wrote “Classical Electrodynamics” did his Ph.D. at MIT with Vicky Weisskopf, which was news to me.
• Will Oliver has a paper in about creating big atoms to quantum compute with.
• Buzzing gravity in Quanta, Wilczek paper, 

Los Endos

Really out of gas.  Have a good weekend!

Peter

Dear Physics Community,

Another eventful week.

Announcements

• Pres. Reif announced a new  climate change initiative with funding opportunities
• Travel rules from MIT
• Visitor guidelines doc and slides
• SHARP webpage (current statistics are something like 217 applications for emergency housing, 191 granted, but stay tuned.)

Education this Fall

• Experiential Learning request for proposals
• Get ready to teach remote Canvas page
• Loaner iPad program
• Advice for fall: Keep in-person classes simple and fun

Physics Department

• A news story about Ibrahim and his research
• Looking for Dark Matter with gravitational waves from MIT alum Nancy Aggarwal
• Bose-Einstein in orbit

The Academic Continuity meetings are now MW 9-10 am and things seem to be heating up as the summer progresses.  I may have to go to more frequent messages.

Peter

Dear Wanderers,

Every picture tells a story.  One day last summer, I went around all the construction equipment behind Building 29 on the General Atomics campus and took pictures of the warning labels on the machines.  I assume that each of these all resulted from a real-life accident that no one ever wanted to see happen again.

First example: what could have possibly prompted this kind of warning?  Did someone go to sleep on the chassis of a raised dump truck?

This I get…

…people who have the privilege of operating cherry pickers should be careful.

These remind me of those kite safety books the electric company handed out in elementary school.

Now that I think of it, this could happen — good to know.

So many ways to be crushed.

I do not recall what kind of machine this was.

Noted – will not use ether…

Classical entanglement.

Another obvious thing to avoid

The battery is located where you could get caught under the wheel.  If you need a jump, ask a friend and keep a sate distance.

This is just wrong – failure to read the manual does not result in injury or death — getting anywhere near this machine does.

These were on a dumpster.

After looking at all these warnings, this is good advice – keep away from anything that moves and you willl be fine.

Peter

Dear Physics Community,

Oh, no – the didn’t go out last week!  I apologize.

Last week we started taking major steps in getting ready to open for Fall with a letter to graduate students and a letter to undergraduates. MIT and Harvard faced down ICE and Rafael wrote an NYT op-ed about the battle not being over.  Meanwhile, the research ramp-up is planning for Phase 2 which will bring 50% of our researchers back to campus.

About essential workers on campus: coming to campus now is voluntary and PI’s, please make sure that your group members understand that.  We have gotten hotline reports that sometimes group members feeling coerced by their PI’s enthusiasm to come to MIT to work in the lab before they feel it is safe.  We have not gotten any reports of direct coercion, If you are a PI, please be extra careful about asking in a neutral way when you ask group members to come to MIT and listen carefully to their response.

Other announcements

• Picture a scientist screening info. Aug. 7, 3 pm. A discussion panel will follow the screening.  Contact Christina for details
• Experiential learning grants and info.
• Vannevar Bush Fellowship for faculty.
• Open office hours on Wednesday, 4-5 pm (already happened, writing for the record.)
• Community lunch on Thursday, 12-1:30 pm

Physics

• What makes an individual?  A person, cat, dog, gerbil we thought of as individuals of s specific species.  Then we learned that most mammals, including us, host several trillion bacteria in our gut necessary to our survival.  Quanta has an article about biologists using information theory to try to come up with a better way of defining and individual.
• Mathematics proves there are physics problems that cannot be answered.  More for Goedel fans here.
• Blackhole with an on-again/off-again corona observed by Erin Kara.

Los Endos

Email causes all kinds of mischief.  Here’s a useful guide to email etiquette.

Stay safe,

Peter

Dear Physics Community,

An incredible week,  Pres. Reif’s announcement about the return to MIT in the Fall and the awful ICE Broadcast message.  Still, some good things: four colleagues (Ibrahim, Mark, Lindley and Yen-Jie) got tenure on July 1, MIT, and Harvard are suing ICE and the Climate Grand Challenge was announced.

Other Announcements

• Teaching and Learning Lab Newsletter
• MITs COVID-19 dashboard
• Future meeting at Caltech for junior or senior women interested in pursuing a Ph.D.

Of Importance to the Physics Community

• This article from Cambridge Day has a good summary of the MIT/Harvard case against ICE and what happens next
• Atlantic article and Nature article on COVID-19 and statistics
• New camera for Magellan to study the production of heavy elements
• Physics Community Lunch talk July 9 video

Now that we know who will be where for the Fall, the Department can start making concrete plans.  There are infinite questions to work through and much work to do to get ready for Fall.

Peter

Dear Physics Community,

A very busy week.  On Tuesday, at 8:30 am, we will learn who will be invited back to campus in the Fall.  It sounds so strange – to be invited back – but that is where we are.  The Department and I will do all we can to support our students no matter where they are.  You are the reason we are here.

Return to MIT

• Next year’s Fall academic calendar
• Once we know who will be where, lots has to happen fast: Timing of stuff for the Fall

In the Fall

• Many, perhaps all our courses will be remote, TLL Get Ready to Teach Remote Workshops and many will continue to work from home: Ergonomics when working from home (thanks to Paul Acosta)
• Remote making course
• There is some chance for in-person meetings, but space for these will be at a premium: MIT Space during COVID-19 crisis, MIT COVID-19 Space Planning Guide, and, if you are really into it: MIT Space Inventory (excel spreadsheet)

Community Events and Announcements

• Wednesday, Christine Eilers gave a great talk on Supermassive Black Holes and where they come from, Link to Community Lunch talk.
• Community lunch talk Thursday 12 pm – 1:30 pm, look for an announcement from Ryan
• MIT may have actually created a function career office.  We will be connecting with them in Fall, Careers at MIT: report, slides, and email
• Physics Values Committee webpages are now live!
• Viewing Central Park Five

Physics

The Physics Faculty are owning Nature this week:

• “Spin phase diagram of the interacting quantum Hall liquid“, Ashoori group

• “Quantum fluctuations have been shown to affect macroscopic objects” LIGO group, paper, MIT News

• Discovery of a giant ice planet by TESS: TESS ice giant news report
• 51 Pegasi b Fellowships announcements

Have a good break!

Peter

Confronting racism at MIT