From XPS to Vostro

Two days ago, I received my new laptop from Dell after almost a two-week wait. The model bought this time is Dell Vostro. The decision was made after seeing a promotion deal in conjunction with our independence day today. My previous laptop was an XPS 2-in-1 Ultrabook, bought about four years ago. Before that it was also a Dell XPS without the tablet and touch-screen ability (and it served me for about seven years) and the one before was a Dell Lattitude (a desktop replacement). While XPS is still the top-of-the-line among Dell models, I thought I should settle for less this time, essentially just to cut cost.

The purchase was necessary as my old laptop had screen problems, beginning with the appearance of stripes, then a cycle of bright and dark screen states and finally before the new laptop arrives, instances (and later prolonged periods) of the screen turning completely dark. Had to purchase an appended LCD monitor while waiting for the new laptop to arrive for me to continue to do work.

Finally my Vostro laptop arrived and I started to install needed softwares and restore needed files, just in time for important meetings the next day (note: our meetings have gone paperless and the need of use of laptops).

Installing LaTeX took me the whole night; found out that I could not install MikTeX and thus instead I installed TeXLive (yet to try this out). Fork out my own money to purchase MathType for Microsoft Office (now on subscription), an equation editor with LaTeX capabilities, since most of my old and admin documents are in Microsoft Word. Despite what people think of MS Word, the software expanded with the equation editor MathType, can actually produced LaTeX-like documents (just use Euclid type fonts instead for the normal tTimes Roman fonts). Finally, got myself the software Mathematica with a personal license (without subscription). This is quite an investment but there was an offer that goes along with Wolfram's 30th anniversary. While I'm not a heavy Mathematica programmer (though my students are), I have been using this scientific software ever since I came back from my PhD. At some point I tried to campaign for the university to take up campus-wide license for Mathematica, but unfortunately it was unsuccessful (engineer-related community tend to use Matlab and those in maths tend to use Maple). Today, the Malaysian universities that have campus-wide license for Mathematica are Universiti Malaya, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Universiti Teknologi Petronas and Monash University Malaysia Campus (lucky them).

Some may ask why not buy these under research grant. Well, first and foremost, I have been without research grant for almost two years now. Secondly, during those early research years (1990s) when I had research grants, I did acquire laptops using my research grant but then someone cynically commented that the laptop usage is not just for research but has been used for personal matters. Thereafter, I have always bought laptops using my own savings, to keep a clear conscience, apart from a few years back when I bought a laptop for the students (group usage). I do not really agree with what the person said since it is essentially impractical to divide work-personal computer usage since most of the time we tend to do things seamlessly. In any case, the computer use has always been mainly for work more than anything else. Anyway, now, after spending so much for the laptop and the softwares, I will be in the saving mode for at least a few months.

Ten Books

Many of my colleagues or family members will not see me without a book or a paper with me most of the time. Even when I go out to eat with my family, I will always bring something to read. I can't stand the idea of doing nothing or lepak (apparently now an English word) or spend more than ten minutes conversing without purpose. Will try my best to read wherever and whenever I can even before dozing off to sleep. So when the Education Minister tweeted about listing ten favourite books, I thought it's a nice idea and will play along.

It is difficult for me to select any favorites because I tend to read a lot in diverse topics and one can't really compare when it come to different topics. Also most of time, I buy books for references rather than reading them cover to cover and besides that, I tend to read papers more these days. Hence, I will just simply list what I have read for about 70% of the book and keep returning to them when needed. Some of these will be pretty dated because I use them while I was a student. In no particular order, they are:

1. Relativity, Groups and Topology II, edited by Bryce DeWitt and Raymond Stora. This book contains lecture notes on theoretical physics from the well-known Les Houches school. It is about 1000 pages long and I would be kidding to say I have really read even half of it despite being interested in almost all the contents. I include this here is because this is where Chris Isham expounds on his canonical group quantization programme. Even though the notes are more than twenty years old, I still ask my research students to read it.
2. Chris Isham's "Lectures on Quantum Theory". I didn't quite use this book while I was a student but I find it extremely clear and contain technical gems in it. Again I always recommend this to my students who are studying foundations of quantum theory.
3. David Bohm's "Quantum Theory". I find this useful in explaining wave mechanics of quantum theory. Note that this book is on conventional quantum theory and not Bohmian mechanics. The book I have is handed down to me by my late second eldest brother and was published in Japan by Maruzen.
4. "Quarks and Leptons" by Halzen & Martin. This is a book that I had as a present from my eldest brother even before I really learn particle physics during my undergraduate. The book is pretty dated by now but it is the one I used to learn particle physics and even quantum field theory very quickly. Note: Alan Martin was one of my lecturers in University of Durham.
5. Felsager's "Geometry, Particles and Fields". I bought this book while I was in Cambridge and found it useful to help me build concrete ideas on differential geometry in relation to field theories and particle physics. At the time, it was published by Odense University Press but presently is published under Springer.
6. Geroch's "Mathematical Physics". Another book bought in Cambridge (Heffers Store). I didn't quite use it while I was a student but I found it unique, giving a bird's eye view how mathematics is used in physics. It gives my first contact with Category Theory.
7. d'Inverno's "Introducing Einstein's Relativity". When I first learn general relativity during undergraduate, we had to use difficult books like Misner, Thorne & Wheeler or Stephani & Stewart. We even refer to Spivak's 5-volume set for differential geometry. I do not recommend these for the beginners. When I started teaching, I found the book by d'Inverno to be more friendly for students.
   
   Now the above are really technical books but I do read popular materials, self-help books and religious books. Among them are:
8. Casti's "Paradigms Lost". This is a great popular science reading that deals on the big questions of science and the open questions of disparate nature. 
9. Covey's "The Speed of Trust". I could have listed his father's more well known book of 7 Habits. I prefer to highlight this book instead due to the problem of trust in our society and in our organization. We spend too much time and energy to neutralize distrust, which could have been used in much more fruitful way.
10. Al-Attas' "Prolegomena to the Metaphysics of Islam". S.M.N. Al-Attas is a well-known local scholar on Islamic philosophy, education and Malay culture & history. Have read most of his smaller booklets but this one seems to be written more comprehensively and coherent.

Note, the above just give you a glimpse of books that I'm reading. Would not really call them favorites but more accurately the books that have influenced in my early learning days. There are many,many more books that I wished I could have read as extensively as the above and I hope I will get the time to do it. 

Aside: Sometime back, we used to joke about if we are allowed to bring a single (technical) book (or two) to a desert island, what would it be. My choice would be Analysis, Manifolds and Physics which cover most of the maths you need in physics. It has now a companion volume.

Finally, here is a pic of me with a small part of my book collection.

#MALAYSIAMEMBACA

The Friday That Was

Last Friday, we had a meeting at Securities Commission for some research project we have agreed to take up. The idea of this project was mooted during the time when Prof. Maman Djauhari was our research fellow at the institute. It so happened to get the MoA done took us almost two years and when it was signed (December last year), Prof. Maman has already left. Nevertheless, we still take up the project given that too much effort has gone into it, partly feeling responsible and there is national interest in it, but also partly we wanted to get the experience working with industries. We presented what we had and discussed what is probably missing, noting that real-life problems are much more complicated. What we thought to be a short meeting, went up until after 12 afternoon (noting it was Friday and we had to go for Friday prayers). Also explained to SC, apart from Sarah, we have many other intervening duties besides the project (this juggling of duties, often goes unappreciated; each new project taken up will often take many hours away from us). This is the pic of us at the lobby (courtesy of Dr. Chan) - from left to right: Azam (SC), Daniel (SC), me (UPM), Dr. Chan (UPM), Sarah (UPM), Wong (SC); another member not present (due to IQRAC preparations) is Zurita.

On the rush back to UPM, we saw an accident involving a schoolkid who was sitting at the divider of the highway while her parent/ brother (unsure), the motorcyclist, was lying a few meters away from her. It was horrible.

Somehow all that afternoon, I felt uncomfortable. I was supposed to chair another meeting later after the Friday prayers. Soon after the Friday prayers, my eldest send me this pic of swollen feet of Izzuddin (my youngest):

He told me that Izzuddin fell down the drain. My wish then was to go back almost immediately. Instead, I asked my eldest to call up my other half who is a doctor and will know what best to do. Me, I stayed on for the meeting since there were some decisions need to be made in order for some students to prepare for their thesis submission in time.

After the meeting, I went straight to Columbia Hospital where my other half already took Izzuddin to. Was informed then that Izzuddin had broken his leg and there is a piece of bone disconnected from the main. If we had insurance for him, they would probably recommend surgery. As I arrived, they already had him plastered and was bout to go home.

The pic might not show much but there is a risk; if the bone is not joined back within two weeks, he may have to go for surgery.

This leg is the same right leg he broke a couple of years back but at a different part. I was in tears during the last time, when a ping pong table fell on his leg. Can't imagine the pain! I really blame the school for not properly supervising the task (kids moving a ping-pong table). We claimed for the school insurance but in the end the claim was unsuccessful. It is not the money that matters but I felt that the school must own up some responsibility. In the present case, I guess my son is to blame for not being careful and fell into a drain. However, I was disappointed to know that it was only his friend that had helped him and they together walked all the way back home (several hundred meters) with my son limping with his friend's support! Again, I can't imagine the pain he had gone through. My son (or his friend) should have informed the school but him having a reserved personality, not wishing to trouble others did not. All the walk might have caused the displacement of the broken bone. Again I wished that the school be a bit more aware of the situation to help. However to be fair to the school (to which I'm humbly grateful) my son had his trial PT3 exam (which is supposed to start today) postponed until next week so that his condition will be slightly better.

My prayers that he will not go through any further pain and difficulties. He has suffered enough. He has already broken his leg twice, broke his arm once, had deep cut in his head after being pushed and his collar bone broke once while he is still learning how to walk.

We (three of us) were scheduled to go to Kuching, Sarawak for IQRAC 2018 last Sunday. But, we decided to forego our tickets just to be with our youngest.

Friends, Present and Past

(Updated: 2 August 2018, 10.30am)

Everyone needs a friend to help ease life better, to share our ups and downs, even if the friend is simply our family member. Most of my current friends are those whom I meet almost every day, among students, colleagues and staff; not that sociable beyond this circle. While not sociable, I try my best not to make enemies though sometimes difference of opinions can get intense. These days, particularly in social media, people sometimes use difference of opinions, unfortunately to create 'enemies'. My own take on difference of opinions is to use what we know about solutions in maths as a guide. Many times, we can't find solutions simply because the (mathematical) system is overconstrained, allowing too many variables into it. If we understand mathematical modeling, we can sometimes ignore some variables (making it less constrained) or allow variables to be parameters, for us to find tractable solutions. Sometimes we even find multiple or even infinite solutions and to this, any solutions will do. Thus, in the complex sphere of human life, I do take difference of opinions as facets of multiple solutions (whether which is the best depends on criteria (or parameters) adopted) and am happy to leave it at that.

But this is not what I've planned to say in this post. Being completely immersed in my work and in my present circumstances, I tend to lose contact with friends from the past. However, I had some pleasant surprise in the past months, when some of my past friends contacted me through the social media or whatsapp. One of them was Moha Lhousni, a Moroccan friend I met in Durham University who contacted me late last year. He was a school advisor in Morocco but has now retired. I'm happy that he contacted me; I still remember our deep discussions on civilization and I still keep his thesis on  the topic of Discourse Analysis of the Holy Qur'an (seemed to have misplaced the thesis). Here is a picture of me and Moha in London.

Another long lost close friend in Durham, was a fellow theoretical physicist from Palestine. Dr. Maher Rashid. I was happy for being able to talk to him over the phone last Saturday using Messenger. He is currently the Associate Principal of Cedars Academy in Leicester. The contact was actually made possible by Dr. Qasem Nawafleh (also friend in Durham) from Jordan. Here is a recent picture of Maher and Qasem:

On the subject of Durham University friends, I have been added to WhatsApp group "Alumni Durham" where I get to know some people I've met while I was there and of course those whom I have heard their names. I guess in part, the group was created after our present Minister of Education, Dr. Maszlee Malik, an alumni of Durham University. got appointed. He was in Durham more than ten years after I left. I'm not sure whether he actually read the chats that we have there but I look forward to see any good changes in our education system under him.

Other friends that I get to reconnect is Hoe Chee Liang, who was a student when I joined UPM. He has settled down in the US and formed a company known as Cita Education. Since we both are very passionate about theoretical physics, mathematics and education, we talked about possible long term collaboration with his company. With his company, we hope to promote theoretical physics here in Malaysia (perhaps more later).

Another reconnection was with friends from my former school SMSPP. Was already in touch with some of them through Facebook but now I'm added to their WhatsApp. Part of the reason in recontacting me is a future get together, to which the idea of me playing drums back with old school friends was mooted. Unfortunately, my schedule was not favourable to the idea. Would have loved to meet them and also perform. Here is a picture of me playing the drums while I was in Adelaide:

On 18 July, INSPEM had organized Hari Inovasi 2018 to honour the high-achievers of the institute (both academic and non-academic). We also invited those who had served with INSPEM before and this time round we had Dr. Mahendran Shitan who was one of our heads of laboratory. Knew Dr. Mahendran even before I joined the Institute and in fact way back to the days in Bintulu. While he was with INSPEM, we often discuss with each other on arising problems of the institute and possible resolutions. I guess I really missed those moments. He is now retired and looked much happier. Here are some photos of us with him:

Finally yesterday, due to a workshop that we had attended in Ministry of Education in Putrajaya, our group from the institute met my former science officer Nor Yusniza there. I did not realise she was working there before that. Here are some pics of us at cafe Gloria Jean near the entrance: