Dear Physics Community,

Oh, no – the didn’t go out last week!  I apologize.

Last week we started taking major steps in getting ready to open for Fall with a letter to graduate students and a letter to undergraduates. MIT and Harvard faced down ICE and Rafael wrote an NYT op-ed about the battle not being over.  Meanwhile, the research ramp-up is planning for Phase 2 which will bring 50% of our researchers back to campus.

About essential workers on campus: coming to campus now is voluntary and PI’s, please make sure that your group members understand that.  We have gotten hotline reports that sometimes group members feeling coerced by their PI’s enthusiasm to come to MIT to work in the lab before they feel it is safe.  We have not gotten any reports of direct coercion, If you are a PI, please be extra careful about asking in a neutral way when you ask group members to come to MIT and listen carefully to their response.

Other announcements

• Picture a scientist screening info. Aug. 7, 3 pm. A discussion panel will follow the screening.  Contact Christina for details
• Experiential learning grants and info.
• Vannevar Bush Fellowship for faculty.
• Open office hours on Wednesday, 4-5 pm (already happened, writing for the record.)
• Community lunch on Thursday, 12-1:30 pm

Physics

• What makes an individual?  A person, cat, dog, gerbil we thought of as individuals of s specific species.  Then we learned that most mammals, including us, host several trillion bacteria in our gut necessary to our survival.  Quanta has an article about biologists using information theory to try to come up with a better way of defining and individual.
• Mathematics proves there are physics problems that cannot be answered.  More for Goedel fans here.
• Blackhole with an on-again/off-again corona observed by Erin Kara.

Los Endos

Email causes all kinds of mischief.  Here’s a useful guide to email etiquette.

Stay safe,

Peter