Dear Physics Community,
Reaching out – Tucker Nichols, an artist in San Rafael CA, will send a hand-painted picture of flowers to anyone who is sick if you ask him. His paintings are beautiful and he is doing this as a gift to the world in these difficult times. If you need cheering up, have a look at the paintings in his online gallery here. PBS Newshour story here.
No Academic Continuity Meeting today
Physics Department
Undergraduate office hours with Peter, Nergis, Emma, and Cathy tomorrow at 4 pm.
End of term – grades are due May 15 for courses with no final exam and May 22 for courses with final exams. The APO staff has to take your grades, do degree checks, and so on before the Department grades meeting on May 26 and the last CAP meeting on May 27. On May 28, the Corporation approves the degree list and Commencement is May 29.
In past years, the APO staff has had a week to do what they now have four days to do and the time they have May 22-25, spans Memorial day weekend, which is awful. We need everyone’s help to make sure they can get their work done, so please:
- Submit your subject’s grades on time or even early.
- If you anticipate problems completing work or finishing grades in this time-frame, please let me know as soon as possible.
Ever want to winter over at the South Pole? – MIT alum John Hardin is living the dream. He wrote a Letter to the Editor of APS Physics about it here. Drop him a line if you can.
One layer at a time – Story in Jagadeesh Moodera’s MBE machine to make ultrathin layers of novel materials here.
Los Endos
Distributing the time – constellations of satellites distribute time for geolocation, metrology, and cryptographic keys. This article describes a new satellite that uses quantum entanglement to carry out these operations securely. This is technically a big deal.
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.