The Best Medicine

Hello readers,

I write this on a very gloomy, rainy day. My dogs, Oliver and Rigby, and I are cooped up in the house as we experience seemingly non-stop end-of-summer showers (note from the future- the rains stopped!). The grey skies feel like a reflection of my spirit, as I worry about the things I read and see on the news. I know I’m not the only one to think that things are a little scary right now - and not in the exciting, spooky-October kind of way.

When I feel like this, I find myself searching for things to focus on that will lift me out of the gloom, whether it be a phone call to my sister, a game of fetch or tug-of-war with Oliver (Rigby prefers to watch from the sidelines), or listening to one of my favorite songs. You know, the simple things.

In an effort to elevate my mood - and yours, too, if you have been feeling like me - I’m choosing some happy, laughter-filled images for us to view for the September Photos of the Month. A little positivity can only help, right? Join me as I try to prove that, even when captured in a still image, laughter can be infectious.

Credit: Photograph by Erich Marx, courtesy AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives

Einstein’s joyous expression in this photo makes me smile. It was taken in 1934 while he was sailing. He is well-known for his love of nature, so that may have been the source of his happiness. I hope you all have something in your life that makes you this happy.

Credit: University of California, Santa Cruz, courtesy AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Gift of Dr. Faber

Sandra Faber laughs and converses with a former student while pointing to an old-school monitor. This video, made by UC Santa Cruz, acknowledges all that Faber accomplished in her career (and also features a colorized version of this very photo).

Credit: Photo by Norton M. Hintz, courtesy of AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives

Some of my favorite photos are those that show people genuinely enjoying each other’s company. In this image, Danish-American physicist Ben Mottelson and his wife, Britta Marger Siegumfeldt, laugh together at St. Croix River in Minnesota.

Credit: AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Gift of Dr. Ronald Mallett

Ronald Mallett converses with physicist Joseph Taylor (center) and his wife, Marietta (left) at the International Center for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy. Interestingly, Mallett is known for his theorizing on the possibility of time travel. On behalf of everyone living in 2020 let me just say - wouldn’t that be nice?

He explains his ideas as well as his motivations in this facinating video.

Credit: Photograph by Emilio Segrè, courtesy of AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives

This photo, which came out of an album owned by Victor Weisskopf, shows Otto Stern laughing while attending the Copenhagen Conference at the Niels Bohr Institute in 1934.

Credit: AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Gift of Donat Wentzel

Here Gregor Wentzel, Anny Wentzel, and Hideki Yukawa laugh together while socializing at a conference in Kyoto, Japan - presumably, the International Conference on Theoretical Physics of 1953.

I hope these photos made you smile and brought a little cheeriness to your day.