Message to the Physics Community, Thursday, May 21, 2020

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Dear Physics Community,

Please note: I am having a problem with Athena (!) uploading files, so I have linked to articles that I would normally upload.  They may be behind paywalls and I apologize if they are.  I will refresh and upgrade WordPress over the weekend.

Announcements

  • Community input to what happens in the Fall term plans is here.  Please participate if you can.
  • Letter from Cindy about graduate students returning to campus.  Please note: graduate students who applied to live on campus will be receiving a separate communication this evening with the results of the housing lottery process. If they receive an assignment, they will participate in a phased move-in process in August. If they do not receive a housing assignment, they will be informed about the waitlist process for securing on-campus housing as well as resources to assist with off-campus housing searches.
  • Letter on appointments for graduate students in foreign countries and not able to return to campus.
  • Research Town Hall, Friday, 1 pm

No academic continuity meeting today

Physics Department

Clocks – new optically coupled atomic clock has frequency stability of 10^-18 s.  In the Earth’s gravitational field, that is equivalent to moving the clock by 1 cm.

NASA’s return to human flight – May 27 will see the first launch of SpaceX Dragon capsule carrying a crew to the ISS.  Story here.  I will opine: the early twentieth century was the dawn of aviation.  The federal government had a role through the Smithsonian and the War Department (now called the Department of Defense), but progress was really driven by private companies.  Progress was fast but lots of people got killed in test flights.

Langley – Samuel Langley as a physicist and astronomer before going into aviation.  At the Allegheny Observatory in the 1860s, he worked on establishing time zones and established a commercial time service.  Later, he developed the bolometer for measuring the intensity of IR radiation.

Los Endos

Trying to get sound files working…

Anthem for the times: here

Or an embedded player:

Let me know which works for you.

Peter

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