Dear Physics Community,

Thank you for the nice notes wishing me well.  Every few months, I work, eat, and drink too much and crash.  It is a circuit breaker.

The weekend so no Academic Continuity Meeting

Physics Department

Kilogram – last Spring on International Metrology Day, Wolfgang gave a great talk about the new kilogram.  His article with Alan Jamison has just appeared in Physics Today here.

Planet 9 – used to be Pluto, but Pluto got demoted.  Now, there is some evidence based on analysis of the orbits of Kuiper Belt object, the notion of a Planet 9 object with a mass of 5-10 Earth masses had come up.  This paper by Witten proposes an almost-plausible trip to Planet 9 to have a look to see if Planet 9 is a primordial black hole.

Invasive species – ten years ago, it was Killer Bees from the south, now it’s Murder Hornets from Asia.  Good lord…

Los Endos

Serial – the Globe has started a serial of a novel, “The Mechanic”.  The first two chapters are in today’s Sunday Globe, here.  I’ve always enjoyed serials in newspapers and am looking forward to this one.

Peter