Dear Physics Community,

Sign here – behind John Hancock’s crazy signature.

Announcements

• Commencement – news is here
• Grading memo for this Spring here – Message to instructors – please get your grades in on time.
• UROP proposals for direct funding are due May 7, Thursday
• Office hours for graduate students with Peter, Nergis, Emma, and Syd tomorrow at 3 pm (an hour earlier because of a conflict at 4 pm).  Question, “What do you expect from your research advisor?” Zoom: mit.zoom.us/my/peter.h.fisher

Physics Department

Time – from Quanta, a timeline of time with biology, physics, and timekeeping.

Pion decay – the decay of the neutral pion to two gamma rays was a favorite topic of Aron Bernstein’s, whom we lost last year.  The Primex II experiment at Jefferson Lab, with Stanley,  has made the most precise measurement of the 1e-16 s lifetime and there is a small disagreement with theory.  This is important because the theory is simple and pretty well understood. The story is here and paper is here.

Los Endos

Sar-Cov-2 – Nature has a good article on the virus and how it works here.

The microMort – your government in action.  A microMort is worth $9.80.

Peter