Message to the Physics Community, Thursday, April 9, 2020

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Dear Physics Community,

From yesterday – several readers asked about my suggestion from yesterday to close the lid on the commode. Here is why.

My first day working at home way March 13.  The first time I used zoom was March 14.  It has been about a month.  We are doing okay, but it is hard for all of us, some more than others.  There are resources to help if you feel you need help:

or reach out to those around you, including me.

Physics Events

  • Wednesday, April 15, 4-5 pm, Undergraduate Office Hour
  • Thursday, April 16, 2020, 4-5:50 pm – Colloquium – Mina Arvanitaki
  • 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

B2HF – Today we mark the passing of Margaret Burbridge, a pioneer of astronomy and astrophysics.  The story here gives a good account of her life.  I’ll only add that I recall an early mentor telling me to read Burbridge, Burbridge, Fowler, and Hoyle and after that, my world was never the same.  The paper, referred to as B2FH is here – please read it.

Pretty cool – MIT news story about ultra-cold molecules (paper is here).  The work was done in the MIT/Harvard Center for Ultra-cold Atoms, which I guess needs to be renamed now.

Thanks – to Ibrahim, Ryan and the colloquium committee for getting the Colloquium on track and arranging colloquia for the rest of the term.  I really enjoyed today’s and, for an hour, was able to think about science and not other stuff.

Thanks also – to David Kaiser and Julie Shah (from Aero-Astro) for the lunch talk on SERC.  They are doing a lot and Physics should try to engage.

In the mess that was March, Ulrich passed away unexpectedly.  Sandi Miller’s obituary is here.  I’m really sad about this and sad that we did not get to do more at the time.  I’d love to hear what the Ulrich would have had to say about the COVID-19 mess.

Academic Continuity Meeting – Canceled, few agenda items

As we get our feet under us in this new world, there are fewer things to discuss, which is good.  Also good is the nascent discussion about how we restart campus.  This is still weeks away, but we need to plan and the community will begin to hear next week.

I’ve put a google earth challenge to the Slack physics-mit#general channel.  Kudos to Will, Melania, Samuel, and Graeme.

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.