Dear Physics Community,

Today was a day of small challenges: mold in the clothes washer and flakey wireless in the house.  After reading this article Cathy sent, I did sit outside and listen for a while.  I’ve always found it remarkable how many sounds there are that I just tune out.

Physics Department

Physics Today – has a new Q&A with David Kaiser

Primordial Black Holes – I was going through references for an article today and found this paper by Hawking in which he considers black holes produced in the early universe.  I remember working through it when I first read it and learning a lot.

There is an industry of people, many scientists and not a few physicists, who spend time plotting data related to the current pandemic and prognosticating about what will happen.  Prediction based on statistics and modeling of this pandemic is very difficult and, as I have said before, hard to believe.  This article from the Atlantic is trying to make a point about statistical inference which I just found baffling.  Maybe someone can explain it to me.

Los Endos

I  wish everyone a good three day weekend.  I’m reacting to the sameness of the weekdays by trying to make the weekends special (succeeding about half the time).  I think tomorrow, I will get out my Marantz recorder and record the noises of Porter Square.

Peter