I had 2 exams this week: quantum mechanics on Thursday and cosmology the day after that. I shan't say more about the exams apart from the fact that I could do most of the stuff, although cosmology had a bit too many 'wordy' questions for my liking.

Immediately after the cosmology exam, as I was packing up my stuff, a guy from my class whom I didn't really know came up to me and said, 'Khee Gan, could I ask you something?'. I'm used to people coming up to me asking me questions about the courses, occasionally even from people I do not know, so I just said yes. 'Is it true that you left early in quantum yesterday?'. Usually, people leave early in exams if a)They can't do any of the questions and can't be bothered to sit there in boredom, or b) They are so good at the paper that they've finished everything well before the allocated time.

Now, I'm fairly well known in class as the guy who always asks questions in class, and my reputation for being the top student in class is quite widespread (even though technically I'm not the top student...my average lagged Xinhui's by < 1% last year). So he must have been implying that I was so smart that I can walk out of the toughest paper before time. I gave him a puzzled look and said no. He turned to his friends and said, 'See...he didn't leave early!'.

I've had earlier indications about crazy rumours circulating about my prowess. Last term, Courtney in my space systems tech class leaned over to me and asked, 'Khee Gan, out of sheer curiosity, is it true that you got an average of 97% last year?'. Now, I was pretty pleased about my 91%, but I personally think that 97% is just plain insane and out of reach. I never boast as I feel that arrogant people are just asking to be put down, but apparently in this case the fact that I don't talk about my results has just let all sorts of rumours about me spring up. Maybe there are rumours that I'm being nominated for the Nobel prize floating around as well.

Most people get gossip about relationships and stuff. I get gossip about my imaginary intellectual prowess.

I am pretty much a confirmed atheist, but sometimes it does feel as if my life is being pushed in a certain direction by circumstances beyond my control. People sometimes think I must be an absolute genius of some kind, but my answer would be: get stuck in a Catholic men-only hall, have no girlfriend despite years of trying, hardly any interest in pop culture, what's left to do?

So I went to the finals of the London International Piano Competition last Tuesday at the Royal Festival Hall. There were 3 finalists who were to play a concerto each with the London Philharmonic. By chance, all of them offered almost the same programmes (one Liszt and one Beethoven concerto each, from which the jury selected one for them to play). So Jayson-Lloyd Gilham of Australia and Frederick Neuburger of France were to play the Liszt 1st and 2nd piano concertos respectively, while Herbert Schuch of Germany was to play the Beethoven 5th.

There was certainly an element of luck involved, because it's much easier to show of one's musicality playing Beethoven, than with Liszt. Incidentally, Herbert Schuch was the German I watched at the beginning rounds with the love affair with his sustain pedal, as I mentioned a couple of posts ago, so I guess his combination of exquisite tone and lavish romanticism has more than overcome any stylistic doubts (I still think his Bach was totally wrong!).

Of the two Liszt concertos, I personally prefered the 1st over the 2nd, which probably coloured my perceptions regarding the French pianist (who played the latter), because he received a very enthusiastic response from the audience, while I didn't find myself as touched by it. The Beethoven by Schuch was very well played, but again I personally felt his approach was a bit archaic in this time and day, and would be less out of place 50 years ago. Don't get me wrong, I love a lyrical and romantic approach towards interpretation, but from an objective point of view (i.e. that of the typical music critic) I wouldn't have thought he could progress through the first rounds.

In the event, Schuch in fact did win the first prize, with Neuburger getting the 2nd prize and the Gilham, the Aussie, getting the 3rd prize (I should also point out that both Neuburger and Gilham are only 18 years old, while Shuch is a comparatively more mature 26). However, I thought all three pianists were absolutely incredible, and I would have paid money to watch any one of them alone. Somehow, having to seat there and figure out who was better detracted from the enjoyment from just listening to the music.

More random stuff about the competition... after the competition, I was present at the reception. A random old chap mistook me for one of the semi-finalists who was a Chinese, despite the fact that the pianist was about 6 inches taller and didn't wear specs. I also got to speak briefly with the conductor who led the London Phil, a nice lady called Sian Edwards. When I mentioned that I was doing physics in UCL, she asked me if I knew Marshall Stoneham, one of the professors there (yes, I did know him). Apparently, Prof. Stoneham is an amateur horn player, and when Sian Edwards was a young girl, she used to go to his house to play in a string quartet... talk about a small world.

The Earl of Wessex (Prince Edward, brother of Charles) was present as the VIP, and he is WAY better looking than the Prince of Wales. While he was on stage to give out the prizes, I was horrified to see that he was sitting on a humble straight-backed chair. In Malaysia, the organisers would have been shot, hung, and then quartered if even the most minor royalty had to sit on anything less than a full-blown leather sofa armchair with a long yellow carpet leading all the way up to it.

A picture of the finalists awaiting the moment of truth: (L-R) Neuburger, Shuch and Gilham. The Chinese guy in the back is my alleged spitting image according to some 80-year old eyes.

My final exams are 2 weeks away, panic is starting to set in, so I've been spending large amounts of time in the library. The funny thing is, I have every single hour of revision planned out before the Easter break even started, and this year I am taking only 5 papers compared with 7 last year, so in principle I should have at least 25% more free time.

This is true to a certain extent... I have been practising my guitar and exercising a lot more than I did in the same period last year. I think the problem is that I treat these as part of my schedule, rather than as something extra. My parents probably wouldn't think of me as being too organised from having me lazing around the house for 19 years, but truth is that when I have a large period of time free in front of me, I mentally plan things even when it is probably unnecesary. For example, I already have my exercise schedule planned out for the next week....gym Tuesday, short run Thursday, long run Friday, gym Sunday. Or at least, that's how I plan it... I'll probably not follow it to the letter, but it's the thought that counts (i.e. I'm stressing myself over it).

The part of my revision that is the most time-consuming is the process of understanding the material. One of my courses is solid state physics (affectionately nicknamed solid-s*** physics) is taught by a lecturer whom we have (equally affectionately) nicknamed 'Horseface'. As I have mentioned before, Horseface is a lecturer only in name, and his 'teaching' involves some rambling in class and scribbling random undecipherable things on the board. Thus, literally all the material in solid-s*** is totally new to me, and I have learn it from scratch. The course isn't trivial either, as the material is conceptually new.

One thing I've realised from my revision is the process of intuition that goes with being a physicist. When going through the notes, there is always the temptation to think that just because I can follow the mathematical steps in the derivations, I 'know' the material. But just following derivations in a linear way isn't assimilating it... doing physics requires one to 'feel' the subject matter. It's hard to describe, but 'feel' is the only word I can think of. I refuse to move on from a section until I can feel it intuitively, and understand what it means physically and how it relates to other things. The intuition is one of my main strengths, and if I don't make sure I intuitively understand the material, there isn't much to differentiate me from Mr. "I-Hate-Physics-But-I'm-Doing-This-Course-Because-Investment-Banks-Like-Physicists".

It's back to the grind tomorrow morning....

I had an interesting day today. A fellow guitarist I 'met' over the 'net, Ivor, invited me to his house. He lives in Middlesex, right at the boundary of London, in a nice but small-looking suburban house (at least from the outside). After we entered and I met his wife, he showed me his garden, which had to be at least double the size of the interior of his house (he told me that he calls his house the 'Tardis', after Dr. Who's hideout which has an interior 100 times larger than the exterior).

Ivor is 71, although he looks in his 50's. After a light lunch with his wife, we got down to the business of checking out his guitars and playing for each other. The thing we have in common is that we both take lessons with Carlos, although apparently he has been playing for almost 50 years, before taking up classical guitar seriously in the past year or so. He has at least 3 concert guitars (at least, he showed me 3 of them), and it was interesting to try them, as I have essentially not touched any other guitar apart from my own in the past couple of years. Still, it must be said that I still prefered my own guitar, which I guess is probably because I have been accustomed to it for so many years.

Ivor is very well-travelled, and he has been to the Far East many times, and this is reflected in the furnishing of his house, which isn't large, but very nice. We swapped stories with each other, and I was there for a few hours, just playing for each other and talking about music.

In the evening, I met up with Jane outside the Royal Academy of Music. She had managed to get a couple of tickets to the first round of the London International Piano Competition, which was being held in the Duke's Hall in RAM. It's been some time since I went out for a concert or recital, and here was the prospect of listening to a half-dozen of the most promising pianists from all over the world. The Duke's Hall isn't a very large hall, but it certainly has an atmosphere, with paintings of musicians lining the wall, large chandeliers overhead and a full-scale pipe organ just hidden away behind some partitions. A Steinway concert grand piano was the solitary object on the stage, and we took front-row seats just to the left of the piano, which allows a good view of the pianists' fingers.

There were 5 pianists in the session we went to; the first was Lithuanian girl, and there was a German guy, two Russian pianists (one guy and one girl), and one girl with her nationality listed as Israeli but with a Russian name. Each pianist has about 30 minutes of music to present, selected from a given list, although there were no repetitions of repertoire among the competitors of the present session.

It's extremely interesting to be able to listen to several different pianists one after another... in normal concerts, the listener has to contrast the musician with others from memory. Overall, all the competitors were superb pianists... but the difference in their styles were definitely there. The Lithuanian girl and Russian girl were in my opinion the best of the evening... both were technically superb, yet played with feeling and panache. The Russian guy was a bit of a robot unfortunately... he was clearly nervous, and the nervous energy transfered well into Lizst and Bach, but when he play a Schubert sonata, it was totally obvious that he didn't have the delicacy and lightness of touch to play it properly. The German was not bad, and I enjoyed his Romantic approach, but he seemed to be in love with his sustain pedal, which totally ruined his Bach.

Overall, it was an enjoyable evening, and I will probably be going to the grand finals in about 10 days....

I haven been posting much lately because the end of the second term has been, quite frankly, insane. I had to write a 50-page report on my research project, and as if that was not enough, I had to prepare and give a presentation, in addition to my usual work. I also had to suffer through two Java exams, but at least once that's over and done with I don't have to worry about it anymore .

Easter break has started, spring has arrived early this year, although I'm not too thrilled at the prospect of staying over during summer in a country where air-conditioning and fans are a bit of a rarity. In the meantime, I'll be studying for most of Easter, although fortunately for me I'm only doing 5 papers in my finals this year (as opposed to 7 last year), so this Easter break should be a bit more relaxed than last year's.

I don't think I have mentioned my plan for the coming summer... immediately after my finals, I'll be going over to MSSL in Surrey to do work for my supervisor, mostly involving writing a paper based on work done in just-completed research project. In mid-July, probably, I'll flying down to Australia, as I have been accepted to an internship in the Anglo-Australian Observatory near Sydney. It should be fun, and I can't wait to visit all my friends in Melbourne and Brisbane (can't think of any friends who are in Sydney, though...). My sister is going to start her degree in Melbourne in July as well, so I might go there first to help her settle.

Anyway Happy Easter to all...I'm going to take a nap now....

The following is an email I wrote in response to an interesting article by Sim Kwang Yang on Malaysiakini, on MCA's campaign for life-long learning.

Dear Kwang Yang,

I have corresponded with you not too long ago regarding philosophy teaching in Malaysia, and your excellent article on life-long learning has made me want to share my experiences with you.

When I was still in early primary school (I think in Standard 1 or 2), my parents bought me a set of childrens' encyclopedia. Now, I'm sure a lot of Malaysian parents buy their children encyclopedia sets, but I actually set about the task about actually reading them. To this date I'm still unsure as to why I did this, but nevertheless I did. This was clearly before the full weight of the exam paradigm hit me (there isn't that much to study in Primary 1 and 2, after all...), and just before the full weight of the information age hit with 24-hour cartoons on satellite TV and video games (this latter was due at least thanks to my parents, who have never succumbed to years of my petitioning to buy a Sega Megadrive). I soon graduated to raiding my parents' collections of 10 year old back-issues in Reader's Digest and Far East Economic Review (!).

For better or worse, I have never stopped being addicted to books, and throughout my primary and secondary education I would rather curl up in my bed with a good book than do my homework. In this respect, I was somewhat fortunate that my parents were too busy to supervise me too closely, and I managed to go through 11 years of state-education without doing much homework at all (my primary education was in a Chinese-medium school, and I consistently got into trouble because of this... secondary school was a government school, which meant very few teachers ever cared...).

I managed to scrape through that 11 years with reasonably good, if not exceptional results... I was intelligent enough to do well in primary education without studying much, and in secondary school I became an expert in last-minute cramming despite my aversion to regular work.

I am now studying in London, doing physics, a subject which I was always fascinated with, and which my parents to their credit allowed me to do, despite its dubious utility (to Malaysian eyes, that is). At the risk of seeming immodest, I have blossomed in university, and I am the top student in my year (there is a Singaporean Education Ministry scholar here who barely edges me in exam performance, but more of my lecturers would agree that I am the better student overall). One of my research supervisors, who has worked with the top physicists in the world, believes that I am one of the top few brains to come from Malaysia, although you would certainly not see that from my SPM or PMR results.

There are almost certainly a lot more intelligent Malaysians out there... my IQ isn't exceptionally high (only about 120-130, and I know friends who are 180). But it is not intelligence which makes me a good physicist, but a critical and questioning mind as well as an ability to think creatively (qualities which, alas, I rarely see in Malaysians).

Clearly, I did not learn these qualities from the Malaysian educational system; indeed, they are IN SPITE of my schooling. You might be surprised that I was totally uninspired by physics in secondary school.... I spent most of my time either asleep or ignoring the teacher during the physics classes. My inspiration to do physics was from reading books outside my curriculum (often at the expense of my schoolwork), and from an inspirational teacher I had in A-levels.

While I do not deny the fact that I had learnt a lot of things from my formal schooling (in particular, I was fortunate that most of my mathematics teachers were good), nevertheless if I not for my intellectual rebellion against the educational system, I would not be where I am today.

I think it's sad that my desire to learn had to be sustained AGAINST the educational system, instead of being fed by it. Perhaps not everyone can be as passionate about a single subject like me, but I have many other interests in history, literature and philosophy in addition to science, so I'm far from a single-minded nerd.

In UK, students who decide to study subjects like history, literature or art do so because they are passionate and interested in it; in Malaysia, they do so because they cannot be accepted into university to do 'proper' subjects. I think this is a sad symptom for the overall condition of a country which aspires to be developed.

Regards,
Khee Gan

It's been a crazy few weeks. Actually, the rush started after I finished the main programming for my project... having the code actually run is great, but that's when the science really started. After the program started spitting out the results, the hard questions started flooding in from my supervisors: Are you ABSOLUTELY sure there's no bugs in your code? Do the results make sense? What's this feature over at 10 keV?
The crux of the matter was that I had to take full responsibility to my work, as it would eventually (hopefully) make its way into the body of scientific knowledge. Last summer, I was carrying out science as well, but there was a lot more hand-holding in the sense that I already had the program sitting there waiting for me, and I just had to feed it numbers and hope that the outputs matched the observed results. Even when I had to help Yong Chen make modifications to the code (adding in the flared disk geometry), there wasn't such a sense of responsibility as it didn't seem as if the work was going be published.
However, it has been made clear to me that if things work out well, I will be carrying forward with my work over summer, and possibly be the principal author for a paper on the work. Also, the fact that I wrote the program myself means that I'm personally responsible for any cock-ups in it. At every step of the way, I had to double- and triple- check everything to make sure that there are no mistakes, and that everything can be explained in a convincing manner.
In that sense, it's an honour that my supervisors have entrusted me with this project, as third year students are normally thrown some problem that has already been solved, instead of giving original work. But there IS a completely different attitude, may I say a scientific attitude that I have to adopt....
Actually, one of the main reasons I've been so busy is because I have been working on my final project report....which is FIFTY bloody pages long. And the worst thing is that I have the entire thing sitting in my head, but whenever I sit down to put it down into the report it doesn't seem to work immediately, and I have to spend ages modifying and perfecting every single bit before I can let it go. Repeat ad infinitum for 50 pages....

After 3 weeks of wrestling with my programming, I have finally finished my research project. In fairness, most of my difficulty was with learning Fortran, and getting debugging it everytime I make idiotic mistakes in my code. Considering that it took me just over a month to get my program up-and-running (although I still need to clean up bits of it), and that I had to learn Fortran from scratch for this, I probably wasn't wrong when I felt that there wasn't very much scientific knowledge required to do my project. After all, when all was said and done it was essentially about multiplying some numbers together, although the algorithms I had to use probably needed more than just programming ability.

When I mentioned this to Kinwah, he seemed to be rather annoyed. He told me that what I was doing was part of front-line-research, even though my role in it was a minor one, so I should be happy with it as most other students get projects which are 'recycled' stuff which the supervisor has already done before. In fairness, even though the bulk of my work was something any competent programmer could do, the background preparation required me to know the problem in its scientific context.

Having said that, creating a program to model the spectrum from supermassive-black holes in galaxies at the edge of the universe is really cool when I'm not sitting in front of my computer swearing at a bug that I can't find. In any case, I have a month left to prepare my presentation and report, which is plenty of time, apparently.

In any case, this does mean that I'll have more free time on my hands, and I can now renew my acquaintance with my guitar. I've been suddenly hit by the performing bug, and if anyone knows anywhere that I could have a recital near London, let me know.

"I want you to be a Fermi.....". I have already mentioned Kinwah's ( my supervisor) propensity towards mentoring me, almost to the exclusion to actually supervising me on my project. This Monday, in our meeting, again we spent the first hour or so sorting out my applications for my summer job.

As a slight aside, if all goes well, I'll be insanely busy this coming summer. I'm applying for a bursary to do research with my supervisors in MSSL in Surrey (about 40 minutes outside London), officially for 8 weeks. In addition to that, I'm applying to do an internship in the Anglo-Australian Observatory outside Sydney, and if I get that I'll probably be spending nights playing with big big BIG telescopes. If I get offers for both, I'll take both on. This lasts 10 weeks. 10 + 8 = 18..... I have maybe 3 1/2 months of summer vacation at most, so how would I make it work. Fortunately, the bursary for the research at MSSL is provided for by a organisation called Nuffield Foundation, but my supervisors will (obviously) be supervising me for the research, and they'll be pretty flexible about timing so long as I get things done.

Anyway back to Kinwah's latest comments/advice to me. His current PhD student, Steven, has gotten himself a post-doc position in Stanford U., and so he told me that Steven could probably help put in a good word for me if I wanted to apply to Stanford for a PhD. Steven is going to be continuing as an X-ray astronomer, so if he's going to be any help to get me into Stanford, I would obviously have to go into X-ray astronomy as well. I do get the vague feeling that Kinwah is trying to push me into his field....

He also said that I remind him of Roberto, his second PhD student who is now on a fellowship at Harvard, in that I am more of an intuitive physicist rather than a purely theoretical type. However, if I were to get a strong theoretical grounding and work mainly as a phenomenologist or experimentalist (e.g. like Enrico Fermi), then he thinks I will be very good at that.

I've always regarded experimentalists as playing second fiddle to theorists, possibly because most of the famous physicists that laypeople hear of are theorists (Einstein, Bohr, Hawking). Also, experimentalists tend not to be able to have so much intellectual ownership of their work, as they tend to work in large groups, compared with theorists. Nevertheless, it's impossible to overestimate the importance of experimentalists....modern science is profoundly based on the experimental method, after all....

My youthful dreams of making an impact on the world a la Einstein and Feynmann, however, have been dispelled by reality. 99.999% of physicists make contributions which the layperson would have heard of, even if they win a Nobel prize (how many Nobel Physics laureates can the average person name off the top of their head?). Science is first and foremost about learning about nature, and the act of doing science should be the greatest reward any scientist can have. Anyone who expects greater rewards from science should look for another career.

In the past week, I have not had lectures because the astronomers are on a field trip to France, so lectures have been canceled. However, my Java programming class is still ongoing, and I still have to make progress in my research project. As my research project predominantly involves programming as well (but in Fortran), this means that I've been averaging about 7-8 hours a day programming in one way or another.

I haven't had much programming experience, apart from an abortive attempt to learn VisualBasic before university. I must say it can be a frustrating but absorbing activity. There's nothing like sitting in front of the computer, cursing and swearing while trying to identify the one flaw in the code that's keeping the program from running properly. I literally refused to leave my computer until I hunted down my adversary like a hunter tracking an insidious but elusive prey. Now I understand why 'techie' people often end up neglecting personal hygiene, sunlight and social contact.

Another thing about the past week or so was that I've put aside some time to practise my guitar and listen to music. It's the opposite of drugs I think....when I don't have music, I might not really notice it, but when I get back into it, I can't imagine not having it in my life.

Last Tuesday, I went to a chamber music recital in my uni, and Prof. Miller from my department was one of those performing. I first met Prof. Miller not when I took his Electromagnetic Theory course last year, but before that when he was organising a recital where I played in. Even though he is already in his 60s, he still has a deep baritone voice, which he puts to good use yelling at the students chatting away in the back of the lecture theatre. In fact, he once told me that when he was young, he had toyed with the idea of going professional... he felt that he was "better than the worst" of the opera singers he had worked with.

He was singing a few Schubert lieder ('songs' in German, which have evolved into a genre of their own) called Winterreisse. The lyrics are based on poetry by Wilhelm Muller...here's a typical one:

9. Irrlicht (Will o’ the Wisp)

In die tiefsten Felsengründe
Lockte mich ein Irrlicht hin;
Wie ich einen Ausgang finde,
Liegt nicht schwer mir in dem Sinn.

Into the deepest mountain chasms
A will o’ the wisp lured me;
How to find a way out
Doesn’t worry me much.

Bin gewohnt das Irregehen,
s führt ja jeder Weg zum Ziel;
Uns’re Freuden, uns’re Wehen,
Alles eines Irrlichts Spiel!

I’m used to going astray,
And every way leads to the goal.
Our joys, our sorrows,
Are all a will o’ the wisp’s game!

Durch des Bergstroms trockne Rinnen
Wind’ich ruhig mich hinab,
Jeder Strom wird’s Meer gewinnen,
Jedes Leiden auch sein Grab.

Through the mountain stream’s dry channel
I wend my way calmly downward.
Every river finds its way to the ocean,
And every sorrow to its grave.

...and that's one of the more cheerful ones!

Today, the world marks the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in 1945. Spare a thought for all those who were slaughtered, and the inhumanity of those who committed this. For those of you who don't know much about this travesty in the history of mankind, I recommend taking a look at Maus, a graphic novel by Art Spiegelmann. There is nothing more I can say to express my feelings today.

My current research project is officially under the supervision of Graziella, but it seems that I'm interacting more with Kinwah nowadays, even though he's officially only the associate supervisor, and is just supposed to help me out with the programming aspects of the project.

I see him more often than I see Graziella, and during our meetings, most of the conversation seems to involve more about my future career than about the work at hand. Don't blame me... I wouldn't mind some advice and help on my future, but he seems to enjoy playing the mentor and gives me lengthy and detailed advice.

Today, I was supposed to pick up an internship form from Kinwah after he filled in. Instead, I ended up sitting there while he sat there telling me about how to improve myself. I needed to get more confidence and tell people my achievements, he said, but at the same time I needed to concentrate more on having 'insight' into physics rather than worry about my crap maths. Apart from that, he gave me some rather lenghty advice on how to be a successful academic and researcher. I basically just sat there and nodded while he told me all this. He has a fondness for using analogies, especially from football...'Right now we're in the FA Cup final, and we're putting you on as a young player....your job is to disrupt the defences to let our main striker into the penalty box. The job may be boring but it's still important', when referring to the fact that my current project could be seen as dull and beneath me.

One thing that did bother me a bit was that he mentioned that I 'moan too much'. Yes, I do have my worries, and I've voiced them out to him, but I'd rather worry now and remain blissfully ignorant. This is definitely not a positive light for him to see me in, but at least he's actually telling me this, so I'm probably not on his shit list just yet. When he was giving me his spiel, I was rather restless because I wanted to get back home and do some work, but instead I just sat there and listened.

Don't get me wrong, I think what he told me was really good advice, and I appreciate it.... but having it rattled off to me in one sitting is probably just a bit too swallow at one go.

It was in Paris that I saw my first Nobel prize winners....8 of them in total I believe. Of the millions of scientists in the world, and thousands for each field, a maximum of three gets awarded with the ultimate accolade every year, so it is really an incredible achievement to win one.

The first thing to notice about the prize winners is their age... the youngest of them seemed to be Gerard 't Hooft (yes, I got the apostrophe right...) (Physics '97) and Harold Kroto (Chemistry '99), and both were at least in the late 40s or early 50s. Most of the others seemed well into their 50s, and Masatoshi Koshiba (Physics '02) seemed positively geriatric.

Most of them were there to give talks, and so it was from their presentations that my impressions of them were made. The first Nobelist talk was given by Zhores Alpherov (Physics '00). His talk was supposed to be 'Physics and Information Technology', but within 2 slides he'd gone of talking about heterojunction semiconductors and bipolar transistors, stuff that I'd covered in the much-maligned solid-state physics course in first term, but by the halfway point I was completely lost. I'm a third year university student, so I wonder what the high school students in the audience thought about it. I amused myself by laughing at his accent. He has this very RRRRRRuuuusssian accent when he talks, like something a Soviet character out of some bad pantomime. I bet he still calls his friends 'comrades' and has glass of vodka when he wakes up in the morning. One interesting thing is that the work which led to his Nobel prize seemed to date from the early '60s.

The others fortunately did pitch their talks at a somewhat lower level, to an extent that Claude Cohen Tannoudji's (Physics '97) talk on quantum physics touched on stuff that I already knew, but I'm sure lots of people in the audience appreciated this level. Harold Kroto's talk on nanotechnology was notable for his superb presentation style. I can bet that every single person in the audience was at full attention during his talk. He didn't just present the science of nanotech (although admittedly at a pretty low level), but he conveyed the sense of adventure in the journey towards the discoveries, and did so with wit and humour. Although I disagreed with some of his points, there was no doubt that his presentation style is totally fantastic.

Incidentally, the only talk in which I fell asleep was at 't Hooft's talk on particle physics. It wasn't that his talk was dull, but I was completely exhausted from lack of sleep (my roommate at the hotel couldn't sleep, and kept the lights open, tossing and turning etc...that kept me from sleeping as well).

Kobashi was another interesting talk. His talk had been titled 'Cosmology and Astrophysics in the 21st century'. So he tottered on to the stage with his cane, sat down (other speakers had did their presentations at the lectern), made his apologies for his frailty, and announced that he was going to talk on neutrinos instead of the scheduled topic. I guess being a Nobel Laureate had its perks, but anyway neutrinos was his field of expertise anyway. I later described his style to a friend in two words: wizened sageness. He spoke in a very slow pace, with the classic Japanese accent, and periodically jabbed at the screen with his walking stick. It was like the old man from Karate Kid, only this guy was even more sagely, and spoke his words of wisdom with a patience borne out of, well, age.

After the conference, I spent my time during the lectures mimicking the speakers, especially Alpherov. During Nuclear and Particle physics, the lecturer is (I think) from one of the former Soviet republics, so I asked my questions in a perfect Russian accent. I don't think he was particularly amused.

Here are some Googled pics of the people I'm talking about...couldn't be arsed to take/upload my own....

Koshiba:


Alpherov (on the left...hope I don't need to tell you who the guy on the right is):


Kroto:


One thing I like about physics, is that I can do work anytime I like. When I'm in a bus stop freezing my butt off while waiting for the no. 113, I can keep myself occupied by thinking about problems. I think that when I'm stuck with something, actually staring at the piece of paper strewn with equations can be a hindrance rather than a help. Maybe it's something to do with a mindset...when I'm sitting right there, I'm forcing myself to solve the problem, and if it isn't obvious, I do get frustrated and angry very quickly. When I'm doing something else, the answers somehow start to seep into my brain subconsciously, or if I'm really bored, thinking about problem free-hand is surprisingly effective.

I was a bit pissed of about a derivation that I had to do for particle physics in the afternoon.... it was an integration that looked rather scary (but then, the emotion that pops up in my whenever I see long equations is fear....), and I was getting frustrated as I kept hitting a brick wall. Part of the frustration was a bit more general, as I reflected on my inferior mathematical ability. I decided to go grocery shopping and get an early dinner...while I was walking along in the shopping centre, and steps to get the integration seemed to flow into my head without thinking.

After I came back, I sat down and did the derivation in 5 minutes flat (OK, I got the wrong sign, but I'm not going to be too fussy...). The human brain works in mysterious ways....

Some of you might know that I was in Paris for a conference last week. It was the UNESCO's launch of the World Year of Physics, 2005, to commemorate Einstein's miracle year in 1905 when he wrote 3 papers that changed the world. Unfortunately, my New Year's resolution is to become a workaholic, so I can't spare the time to write in detail.

However, here's a report that I wrote to the Institute of Physics student newsletter to whet your appetites:

It was appropriate that the launch conference for the United Nations World Year of Physics was held virtually in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France. Constructed in 1889, the Eiffel Tower embodied the anticipated scientific and technological advancements of the coming 20^th century. In 1905, this spirit was turned into reality by an unknown Swiss patent clerk in Bern, doing theoretical physics in his spare time.

A hundred years later, the global physics community and the UN have decided to recognise 2005 as the World Year of Physics (WYP) in homage to Albert Einstein’s annus mirabilis. Jointly organised by UNESCO and the European Physical Society, the launch conference for WYP 2005 was held at the UNESCO headquarters located several blocks from the Eiffel Tower. Nearly 1300 delegates from all over the world were gathered for this event, which was held from 13-15 January. In view of Einstein’s youth when he published his seminal papers, it was fitting that half of the delegates were students at various levels, from high school to post-graduate studies.

The conference consisted of a non-stop schedule of talks and discussion sessions held over the three days. In following with the broad theme of ‘Physics for Tomorrow’ chosen for WYP 2005, the talks addressed of the challenges facing physicists in the 21^st century. These were presented by a distinguished panel of speakers composed largely of research physicists, including several Nobel laureates. They presented a fascinating mosaic of the unanswered questions and possibilities open to the physicist of the near future, when research will become increasingly cross-disciplinary and the boundary between fields will blur. However, the future challenges for physics extend well beyond the merely scientific.

Several of the talks and discussion sessions talked about physics in its context of its socio-economic challenges. And these are massive challenges: the increasing disparity between developed and developing countries, declining levels in the public understanding and support of science, difficulties in recruiting young people into physics, and others. The diversity of the delegates ensured that there were representative points of view from across different genders, nationalities, faiths and age groups.

As an aside from the formal sessions, there was a book exposition from various scientific publishers and a very popular showcase of interesting table-top experiments organised by a group of Danish physicists. Of course, there was the opportunity to meet other physicists and students from all over the globe, from countries as far flung as the United States and Ghana. Language was but an easily surmountable barrier in the presence of the uniting passion towards physics and science in everyone. The conference culminated in a formal banquet at the French Senate in the Palais du Luxembourg on the evening of the 14^th.

The general mood at the conference was one of optimism. Maybe it was due to the energy of the younger delegates, but there was a sense of eagerness to take on the challenges that lie ahead, and overcome them. A century ago, a 26 year-old young man profoundly changed the face of his world. His modern-day counterparts are now preparing themselves to do the same.

A pic of the Irish, US and UK delegations in front of you-know-what....

Been home for just about a week. Home is beginning to refer less to any specific place, but rather wherever I happen to be at a particular time. Relations with my parents are still pretty much the same Cold War situation that it was, although we have largely avoided any major flare-ups for now.

Still, I seem to have become more distant to everything in this country. I somehow feel as if I belong less to this country. It's an alarming thing to realise that I relate less to people of my own country than those in Britain. I have never felt the total lack of sophistication in Malaysians so keenly as now (yes, this does completely smack of pretension, but no apologies from me...). On the other hand, when I'm in London, the decadence and pansiness of the British people do drive me up the wall at times, so it's probably a matter of the grass being greener on the other side.

I have been working part-time in the NST again this time round, but things seem to be going slow in the few days I've been here, although I've managed to finish a couple of articles as it is (no guarantee on whether they get published though). Also catching up with some friends, although my reserves of cash is drying up with alarming speed.

The other main thing that's happened this week is of course the earthquake off Sumatra and the resulting tsunamis. It's sad that tragedies only seem really tragic when they happen close to home, but it's true... when tens of thousands of Iranian died in the Bam earthquake last year, there wasn't so much media coverage. As it is, the tourists who perished on the beaches of Thailand probably maximised the amount of coverage in the Western media. Not that this is a necessarily bad thing, as more publicity means more humanitarian assistance and donations from private citizens.

One thing that really chilled me to the bone is the realisation that if not for Sumatra being in the way, we would have taken the brunt of the tsunami across the entire western coast of Peninsular Malaysia, instead of just receiving some of the diffracted wave in Penang. Fortunate for us, but I bet that doesn't comfort all the Acehnese who have suffered so much. Part of me wants to go do something about this. I have called the Maha Vihara, a Buddhist temple in Brickfields where they are accepting donations from the public, and the lady I spoke to told me to just turn up if I want to lend a hand with the work. I just might.

As some of you have gathered, I have been in a low ebb in the past couple of months or so. I have had difficulty concentrating on work, sleeping at night, and has barely touched my guitar since my big concert in October. Mel suggested that it might be SAD (Seasonal Adjustment Depression), where the lack of sunlight in the winter (the Sun set at like 3.30pm today) made me depressed. But I've been in London for the past two winters, and I don't remember being so down.

Last night, as I laid in bed tossing and turning at 3am, grappling with my demons, I was completely filled with resentment and anger at all the times I've been wronged, even if they happened years ago, and I was lying there plotting revenge on how to get back on those people who have made me unhappy. I gave in to my anger, when I suddenly realised: this cannot last without me destroying myself mentally.

I sat up in bed, and knew I had to do something. My parents have been trying to drill into me to take up meditation for my own good, and I have always rebelled against them. They don't seem to realise that I'm the perfect candidate for reverse psychology: tell me to do something and I won't do it, even if it's something that I would have done on my own. When I was 14 or 15, I was a believing Buddhist, but my parents suddenly turned towards Mahayana Buddhism, and which had elements I completely dislike, and that turned me away from it. Ironically, the final straw that turned me stop considering myself as Buddhist came from a pamphlet my father made me read when I was about 18. It was by some Thai Buddhist monk, and it contained stuff that I considered so repulsive and ridiculous that I considered myself an atheist from that time onwards.

I realised that I need to continue my own search, and not let my disdain for my parents' particular sect of Buddhism poison my perceptions of the entire religion. When I made that realisation, I calmed down almost immediately, and I decided to pick up a little booklet of Buddhist aphorisms that my mother had given when I left for the UK. After reading a few minutes, I was calm enough to turn off the light and sleep.

It's good that I'll be flying back in 2 days' time. A change of environment can only do me a world of good, and I can't wait to meet up with my friends.

Check out this video of my friend Todd Kreuzberg from Annapolis, whom I visited during my STScI internship in Baltimore. He totally rocks (albeit rather unorthodox playing style), and I've gotta get back to working on my guitar....

I had dinner with a VIP on Sunday evening. A few days before, Jane had called me, saying that Tourism Malaysia was hosting a dinner for the visiting Minister of Tourism, and they wanted a couple of young Malaysians to be present. My first response was, 'Ummm... do I have to play?'. I haven't touched my guitar for ages, and I most certainly wouldn't have been very eager to play in public anytime soon. Fortunately, we were just to be there to provide company for the minister, so as it was basically a free dinner, I agreed.

One thing to note is that I had NO idea who the minister was even after the dinner... I've since googled his name (Datuk Leo Michael Toyad, 'Datuk' is a title for you non-Malaysians), but I was totally clueless during the dinner and had to cop out by referring to him as 'Datuk'. The dinner was at Satay House, a Malaysian restaurant near Edgware Road, so it was something that would have set my mouth watering if I wasn't going to go home during the Christmas break. Jane and I arrived at the restaurant bang on time, at 8.30pm (and this despite the fact that I was a bit late meeting up with Jane near Edgware Rd). Of course, since there was a VIP going for the dinner, AND the fact that they were all Malaysians, meant that they were precisely 30 minutes late.

There were were the top two people from the Tourism Malaysia London branch there (Zalib and Zailin respectively, I think), and the minister of course, along with a few other people whos names I didn't quite catch (the only non-Malaysian at the table was their driver, who had this extremely Cockney accent). The minister was quite friendly to us, and it turned out that he used to play the classical guitar himself...and he even did Grade 8 and Performance Diploma for it. Small world indeed.

Of course, I absolutely stuffed myself silly with the food, as a prelude to stuffing myself silly when I go back home I guess. As for the dinner table conversation, I must say that I was rather occasionally bored by some of the things that were said, and I confined most of my contributions to nodding and smiling politely, except when talking to the minister about classical guitar of course.

In any case, I would never complain about free food, and I did enjoy the evening.

My New Year's resolution for this year was to do volunteer work, to ignore myself and give something to other people. I've told very few people about this because I was afraid that I wouldn't have the willpower to carry this out (which in retrospect probably isn't a good thing). I have all the ingredients of happiness with me: talent, intelligence, motivation, stable family, success (at this level). But there has been an emptiness inside me... all of you know I have always been single, and that is something that has been bothering me for ages, but in university it's even more glaring, as it's the stage when even my parents have given me the go-ahead to get a girlfriend.

Of course, it's not been through lack of trying....I've lost track of the number of girls I've pursued with zero success and plenty of rejections, and I've taken every single one personally. One of my personality traits is self-confidence bordering on cockiness, but somewhere inside there's a part of me that takes a huge put-down from those rejections, that's something is inherently wrong with me.

My response to this is to prove my self-worth, and the best way to gain best worth is to give instead of receive. I have received all my life, but rarely have I had a chance to give to someone, and in those occasions, I briefly felt complete. So one night near the beginning of this year, when I was wallowing in my self-pity, I made a resolution to give something away instead of waiting to receive.

When the 2nd term started, I got as far as walking to the Volunteer Services Unit in my Students Union, but there was no one there as it was lunchtime. Since then, my work and extra-curricular activities have swamped me, and I never did think about carry my resolution through. In the beginning of this term, I finally got to the extent to talking to the people of the Volunteer Services Unit, and they have given me some contacts... I have emailed a project working with young children which appeals to me, and we'll see how it goes.

Talk about belated fulfilment....