Dear Physics Community,

Aside from being tax day, April 15 has a lot of other associations.

• RMS Titanic sinking in 1912.  The RMS Titanic had two sister ships – the Britannic and Olympic.  All met bad ends.
• Notre Dame de Paris burned just a year ago.  I was in Paris and saw it.
• Marathon Bombing in 2013.

Physics Community Events

Ryan and Christina have made a calendar for Department Events.  Here are instructions on how to get it.  Ryan also sends an email for each a few days before.

Physics Department

Sound waves in a strongly interacting fermion gas – Martin and Co. along with another group have measured sound waves in a deeply quantum mechanical system.

Event Horizon Telescope observed jets from a distant billion solar mass black hole.  Jets are the beaming of matter and radiation by an intense magnetic field around a compact object.

Many think the ecological disruption from climate change is exponential, like an epidemic.  We just lived through an exponential – everything was okay and then suddenly it wasn’t.

Academic Continuity Meeting

Most of the meeting focused on when and how the restart of research and teaching will happen.  There are two committees: one for 2020 and one for 2021.  From the discussion today, it is clear there have been no decisions made and the 2020 committee is working on when decisions will have to be made.

The research will start first because it is easier and can be earlier.  In the coming weeks, PIs will be asked to develop low-density operation options for their work.  Work may occur in shifts, those in labs will have to physically distance and wear PPE and there will be periodic PPE tests.

For residential education, I believe the lastest a decision can be made is July 1 for students to return in the Fall.  I think the decision will be earlier.  When and how the restart happens will also be determined by what the State and City do.

We will know much more in a week as the peak number of infections comes and goes, I hope.

Los Endos

I always wondered about the entomology of the word “byte“.