The Thunch Page
Thursday Lunch at Peyton
Graduate students only.Current thunch czars: Alex Howe and Ai-Lei Sun
1thunch \'thunch\ n. [prob. short for thuncheon] (1982)
1: a light meal; esp: one taken in the middle of the day (i.e. 12:30pm)
2: the food prepared for a thunch (i.e. pizza)
-- out to thunch
slang: out of touch with reality
2thunch v.i. (1982) :to eat thunch
v.t. :to treat or invite to thunch
-- thunch-er (thunch guest) n.
History of Thunch
Thunch is a weekly meeting of the graduate students in the Department of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University. Usually, we meet at 12:30pm on Thursdays in the Peyton Hall Dome Room (201). We partake of pizza. No one is allowed in who has a Ph.D., save one special guest of our choosing.
Thunch began in the early 1970s. The founders, Ellen Zweibel and Mike Shull, were annoyed at having to scavenge for food in the woods behind the IAS while the professors dined heartily at Tuesday lunch, from which graduate students were excluded. In response, they organized their own lunch on Thursdays, catering only to graduate students.
Since that time, thunch has hosted foreign ambassadors, congressmen, Nobel Prize winners, and astronauts. In comparison, the best Tuesday lunch has done is to host Nobel Prize winners.
Current Accounts