After my trip to Solo last year with my wife and son, I knew I wanted to maintain the relationship with Prof. Cari and Prof. Soeparmi. We had the common aspiration to develop further our theoretical community in our respective roles as academics cum administrators. Thus, when I received another invitation from them early this year for ICSAS 2017, I immediately agreed. In the beginning, I wasn't sure what topic to speak on but after a while, I decided to make a quick review on quantum contextuality noting that 2017 marks 50 years of Kochen-Specker theorem. I was hoping that I get myself updated as well on recent progress for the understanding of contextuality (and perhaps took up a bit more than I can chew).
The trip to Solo coincided with a wedding that my other half had to go. Thus, I went to Solo solo this time. Flights were delayed but this is a small matter. I was thinking that some students will be picking me up at the airport and thus I bought packs of chocs for them to share. Unfortunately, I lost them while waiting for the flight to Solo. When I arrived in Solo, found out that it was Prof. Cari & Prof. Soeparmi that had waited for me at the airport. It was not necessary for them to do so but I'm honoured. Another surprise was during the arrival at the hotel, we were greeted by gamelan music played live. If I had known the gamelan musicians were not playing every night, I would have taken a pic of them playing. This is the gamelan set situated right in front of the hotel lobby.
Even though I was tired, I had to stay up a little bit after checking in, to ensure that my slides are finished (and it wasn't easy reviewing 50 years of efforts of others - I had to gloss over for most of the recent developments).
The venue for the conference is different this time; it was at Hotel Lorin Business Resort & Spa. Some pics below:
Just like last year, the event started with a cultural dance.
I was the first plenary speaker of the event and again like before, they called up the speakers of the first session to the stage facing the audience and conducted questions and answers at the very end of the session. This time, I wasn't shy to ask someone to help take photos of me (thank you). My talk went ok but I knew I don't have much time to deliver as much as I wanted since it is only for half an hour. The other speaker during the first session was Dr. Jaya Murjaya who spoke on earthquake warning system in Indonesia. This topic is much more locally relevant and had most of the questions at the end, while mine had one. Here are some pics.
After the Q&A session, there were prize givings.
The other plenary session had Dr. Alexander Khmaladze (SUNY, Albany) who spoke on digital holographic imaging and Prof. Cari (UNS) who spoke on integrable methods in quantum mechanics. Here are the pics from second plenary session.
The group photo (had to be broken into different sessions):
The two plenary sessions ended with lunch thereafter. I did not go for the rest of the parallel sessions mainly because we had some discussions elsewhere. In the evening we went out for dinner at some popular eatery called Waerong Kroepok, which had live music. Pics below:
The next day was my flight back home in the afternoon. Again Prof. Cari & Prof. Soeparmi took the personal effort to send me to the airport. They also bought a whole box of Solo's famous srabi (was told that it had to be bought as early as 5am in the morning since it will be sold out by 8am). We took some pics in front of the airport.
The flight to Jakarta was again delayed for more than an hour and I was really worried that I will miss he connecting flight to Kuala Lumpur. So when the plane landed, I quickly rushed out to change terminals for the flight home. Luckily the luggage was checked in at Solo all the way to Kuala Lumpur and I do not have to drag it along with me during my rush.
While in Solo, Prof. Cari told me of the real possibility of them visiting UPM in the near future with an entourage of senate members. I contacted CosComm for this and I hope their visit will be realized soon.
