A New Day, A New Normal

摘要

Rain fell steadily on campus the day the labs began to shut down. A March 16 email from Caltech's president and provost had informed the community that, to limit the spread of COVID-19 and support the efforts of public-health authorities, all nonessential research needed to be deferred or transitioned to remote operations. The atmosphere in the laboratories turned eerie, without the perpetual whir of motors and pumps. The atomic physicists carefully turned off their cryocoolers, slowly, to ensure that evaporating gas did not create too much pressure; the chemists shut down their X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy machines and electron-beam evaporators, sealing off volatile chemicals and glove boxes.