Author Archives: fisherp

Nobel Week

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Dear Physics Community,

Jane Ann and I just returned from Nobel Prize Week in Stockholm where we were guests of Rai Weiss.  The Nobel Prize is about the biggest thing that happens in Stockholm, they really go all out for the Week, to a stunning result.  The events of the week are televised and Sweden spends the week celebrating intellectual achievement.
Rai-01
Last Friday, Rai gave his Nobel Prize lecture as the first of three parts, followed by Barry Barish and Kip Thorne.  Rai spends a good deal of his time recognizing the great contributions of the LIGO team, LSC, NSF,…
You can see Rai’s Nobel Prize Lecture here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgICZnAo04A
 
Sunday, was the Nobel Prize Ceremony, where the Laureates receive their medal and diploma from the King of Sweden: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNWwGQAKidA
If you look carefully, our Department is well represented on stage. The Nobel Peace Prize is given on the same day by the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo, Noway.  This year, the Pease prize was awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons and you can see their ceremony here: http://www.nobelpeaseprize.org.
Followed by the Banquet, where Rai gave a short speech on behalf of the Physics Laureates.  Video shows just how lavish the Banquet (*) is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiKovEM1Cb4
(Thanks to Tran for finding these.)
The other Banquet speeches are well worth watching – they are short, informal, and quite moving:
The Nobel Laureates work hard during Nobel Week, with many other lectures and appearances you can see here: https://www.nobelprize.org/
It was a privilege to be a part of this amazing week.  Many from MIT went and there are stories and pictures to collect and share.  The above is the “official” part I wanted to be sure everyone in the community got a chance to see before too much time passed.
Peter
(*) This video shows the setup of the 2011 Nobel Banquet: https://www.nobelprize.org/mediaplayer/index.php?id=2396

Bonsai Status Report #1

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I have a Chinese Elm I got from Amazon (!). I kept it inside for a couple of months during with winter and it grew some runners. When the warm weather started to return, I moved it outside and cut off the runners. Here is what it looks like now:

It looks pretty scraggly, so I cut off all the foliage on the top and they are starting to bud:

It still looks woody.

My question: should I cut away the woody parts? If so, how severely? I am aiming for something like this:

I am also trying to grow seedlings and cuttings from my river birch. I have several pots with cuttings in them that I have just left under the birch as it dropped its seeds this year. There is a lot going on in this pot: . You can see the cuttings (very slow to deploy their leaves), the seedlings from last year and the seeds form this year.

I plan to just leave them out until winter and water them. If anyone sees anything else I should do, please let me know.