At least one MIT student calls for an end to the school's annual sodium drop

Update: Even though I recently got a new eyeglass prescription, I obviously can't see well, because I missed the fact that Halle wrote his plea 10 YEARS AGO, rather than as a reaction to the recent burning of five people by sodium (watch this year's MIT sodium drop). But that says something as well ...

Michael W. Halle writes in the MIT Tech that it's time for MIT students to grow up and stop dropping sodium bars in the Charles:

.. Today, society increasingly stereotypes scientists as people who act without regard to consequence. Behind every toxic waste dump is someone who thought it wouldn't matter, or did what had always been done before. The Sodium Drop exactly fits the stereotype, albeit on a smaller scale. At MIT, we're supposed to be different. We're supposed to be the ones who can think for ourselves, who relish breaking the status quo when it becomes outmoded. The tradition of the Sodium Drop has become just that: outmoded. I ask that those who organize it find an alternative and equally alluring tradition that doesn't sacrifice the quality of the fragile river environment that is MIT's backyard.