Message to the Physics Community, Monday, April 7, 2020

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Dear Physics Community,

We are starting in on difficult weeks and will learn a lot about ourselves and each other as we navigate this.  We have to accept where we are and think in terms of how we and those around us are today and tomorrow.

I’m keeping away from national and international news – I hear about it anyway because that’s what people tend to talk about.  State and local news is more relevant to me right now and can be inspirational.  I read Somerville Times (which is good), Wicked Local Cambridge (okay), Universal Hub, and the Globe.  The smaller and closer, the better.

One of the cooler things going on is GLX.

Physics Department Events

Jeremy Owen – Universal Bounds on Nonequilibrium Response with                                                                      Biochemical Applications Elisabeth Matthews – Probing exoplanet populations with debris disks

  • Wednesday, April 8, 4-5 pm – Office Hours for Graduate Students with Peter Fisher and Nergis Mavalvala
  • Thursday, April 9, 2020, 12-1:30 pm – Faculty-Staff-Student lunch, “Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing”, David Kaiser and Julie Shah
  • Thursday, April 16, 2020, 12-1:30 pm – “Grading and Exam Guidelines for the Spring Term”, Nergis Mavalvala
  • Thursday, April 23, 2020, 12-1:30 pm – Nikta Fakhri

Physics Department

Tuesday Lunch Talks – the next date is April 14.  Please contact Anna Frebel (afrebel@mit.edu).  If you would like to give one.

Academic Continuity Meeting

Advisories of interest

Restart – various groups are starting to think about what needs to happen to restart things as MIT.  Part of the thinking relates to how well we can test for and manage COVID-19.  The timeline is notional:

  • PCR based testing – available now
  • Antibody testing – ready in a month
  • COVID-19 therapeutics – 2-4 months
  • Vaccine – earliest Jan-Mar 2021

What this tells me is that I need to learn what all these things mean if I want to know what is going on.

Testing – Voluntary testing for COVID-19 using PCR based ran Fri/Sat/Sun with 560 swaps sent to Broad.  664 asked for the test, about half of the undergraduates on campus,1/3 of graduate students, and the rest staff and faculty living in student residents.  This is a research project to learn how to test for the virus in a group of people on campus.

Summer program – summer programs are still very uncertain and, unlike during term at MIT,  there is no “registrar” that has a comprehensive view.

I spend a lot of time looking at odd things on Google Earth.  Here is one.  Any guesses what it is? It is located at  34°49’58.11″N lat., 117°46’5.70″W, long.

Peter

P.S. I am posting these messages in my blog roll here. Thanks to Physics Council, Cathy Modica, Vicky Metternich and Christina Andujar for input and comments on these messages.