Conference Matters

Part and parcel of an (active) academician's life is to go to conferences. Now, for what purpose is very much tied to the personality of the individual involved. Some might just think it's something to be added to his or her CV. Some would like to meet people and do networking. Some would like to see what's the recent developments in the subject matter directly from the experts. And some (and I've heard this from administrators) think it is like going for a holiday. For me, it is certainly not the last one and I will always have the fear of not doing enough for a conference paper (despite how little it is valued these days).

I'm about to go to this conference on "Quantum Theory and Symmetries 6". It is a well-known conference among quantum theorists and there will be many well-known physicists there. I'm actually feeling rather small when I look at at the participant list. There were uncertainties before of me going but little by little, it seems to be disappearing. The hurdle of getting the fund for the flight is over, many thanks to INSPEM officers for their help. Seriously speaking, I think most academics dread the processes involved and prefer their brain cells to be working on research problems instead of worrying about these processes. My next hurdle is actually getting a visa. I didn't realise before how difficult the process is. I'm scheduled for an interview at the American Embassy this coming Monday morning for the visa application. And for this, I've already spent a considerable amount of money, even before I'm actually making the trip. Thought I should be saving money for my expenses there, particularly I do not know how much money I should bring and this will be the first time I am in US. Anyway, I hope the visa process will not take too long since my flight is scheduled just next Saturday!

Besides the Quantum conference in the States, I have our own INSPEM conference to worry about which is just a few months away. Though we have made progress in the organization, I think it is still not smooth sailing - there are still many loose ends and I'm aware of that. I am very much dependent on the staff members to make this event successful. While the scope of the conference is very much like anything under the sun, I would like to see it evolves into something wth a particular unique nature. The name as it is, emphasizes both research and education in mathematics (I would have preferred mathematical sciences). Thus, I would imagine the conference dealing with a balance of research and education issues. Perhaps along the way, it could developed a following among researchers who also have serious concern about education and likewise the educationists who would like to see aspects of frontier mathematical sciences incorporated in our education systems and practices. Currently, from the list of participants, I believe it is developing into something of a regional flavour with the bulk of participants being from Indonesia and Malaysia itself. I hope however it will outgrow this two-country mode and have more particpation from other neighbouring countries.

Something amuses me a bit during the organizational process of this conference. There was concern regarding the scope of the conference and how to portray it. I was arguing actually for it to be more open beyond the traditional mathematics scope. Rather than heaping things into pure maths, statistics, maths education and everything else into applied mathematics, I would have preferred areas like theoretical physics, theoretical biology, mathematical economics & sociology, theoretical computer science, informatics etc. to be equally highlighted. Thus my earlier suggestion of the scope "applied mathematics and theoretical sciences" when a more compact name is asked for. I had argued that applied mathematics have certain connotations to it, normally associating traditional areas like fluid dynamics, operations research, continuum mechanics, numerical analysis etc. and some areas of theoretical physics will usually not fall into the label applied mathematics. I've quoted the example of the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP) in University of Cambridge. Also, there was concern that the scope of computer sciences are not felt even with my compact labelling above. I have no qualms of being labelled as applied mathematician but my concern is how others see it and the desire to attract more theoreticians to the conference. This will also help the conference (and also INSPEM) to grow to be truly multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary but I will leave this to those who wants to be the future-shapers of both entities.