Happy Birthday Izzuddin

Today is my youngest son's birthday. He is now 18. He has gone through a lot in his life, now taking his SPM in these strange times. I guess, like everybody else, he is anxious to get his SPM over with. He has a long way to go since he only took his first paper yesterday. He had to miss the BM and English papers due to him being quarantined. That will also mean he will finish his SPM later then most of the other candidates. I hope the replacements will not be scheduled too long after. He is also our only child that took SPM not in pure sciences. Here is him with his gadget during lunch after our Friday prayers.

He had quite some painful experiences. While he was a baby, he had tonsillitis and was hospitalised. I made the mistake of attending a faculty event while he was hospitalised with my other better half tending him. Never made the same mistake (but almost did - see below). He had broken his arm once and his leg twice. One of them is probably his fault, walking along a slope and fell. Despite this, he walked all the way home (the school is nearby the house) being helped by his friends. I was at the institute, scheduled to chair a meeting in the afternoon. I had to start the meeting first and briefed members on some facts, before leaving (that was almost my second mistake). The other two accidents are caused by others and could have been avoided. The broken arm is due to being pushed by a friend, if I remember it correctly. The other one was due to a ping pong table fell on his leg and this I hold the school responsible for not monitoring carefully - he was assisting the school, carrying the table along with his friends before the mishap happened. We tried to make the school feel responsible by claiming for insurance to pay partially for the treatment costs. But in the end, we did not get any form of compensation. Must say I was sore with the whole event but let bygones be bygones.

So tonight we decided to go out for dinner and try out the new eatery Me'nate near Centrio Square. 

I wasn't fancying of eating too much but just wanted to find out what's with all the rave. My other half was hoping to try out Wagyu but it was expensive and so settled for a premium steak instead. The birthday boy himself just preferred a chicken sandwich (like he always does). Myself just ordered pasta with smoky beef. Here are some pics - the place is a bit crowded but SOPs are observed letting in a specified number people in. We had to wait a bit before getting in. 

Back at home, we had the birthday cake that we bought earlier.

Missing from all this is my eldest, who is working in Shah Alam. Perhaps when interstate travel is allowed and he comes back, we will try to do this again.

What's the Story

Just yesterday morning, my son went to school to remove his pink wristband and with that he is officially considered as Covid-19 free (what a relief). Thus, his second swab test must have shown negative result. So, today he will be taking his first SPM paper which I think is the third paper of history. I pray that he will do well.

History allows us to give a sense of perspective, where we have been, and why are we as we are now. If lessons are properly learned, they may be useful to chart the future. I'm not much of a history buff, but I tend to think more about the future. Being part of the university administration before, I do tend to look at what would be called 'prominent universities' to see what are their traits. When I was in the administration of the maths institute, I do look at the well-known research institutes abroad, most of which are in the west (does that make me an anglophile or having signs of a colonised mind?). There is one in Japan that I was already aware of while I was in Cambridge namely, RIMS, Kyoto; this is mainly due to its journal Publications of RIMS. Of course, another one in Asia is Chern Institute in Tianjin that I've been to for Group-29 and also we have visited thereafter. See the  pics below showing the entrance to the institute and a photo with Lei Fu (wearing shorts) the then Director of Chern Institute and Chengming Bai, the deputy at the time. Its current director is Chengming Bai who has visited us during EQuaLS8.

A more recent institute that I have looked up to (and had wished to visit it, but now it will just remain a dream) is Perimeter Institute. It is interesting to read how Perimeter Institute was formed and you can read it in Howard Burton's book "First Principles: The Crazy Business of Doing Serious Science". Now most of these institutes focus much in very theoretical research. Certainly in my mind, this is not where our strength lies and if one further impose the kind of KPIs that is made for applied sciences, certainly it would cause problems. What would be the characteristic of our institute certainly occupies much of my mind then (of course, not now). Certainly it would not be of a simple carbon copy of any existing institute. Some would think that we are too simplistic (too dumb?) in that sense, which is far from the truth. I remember the heavy discussions I had with Lamberto Rondoni on what should fuel the research in the then conceived Malaysia-Italy centre (See pic below with the Italian ambassador, Lamberto having a taste of Malaysia wedding and finally, Lamberto, Santo and me in Turin). 

Elsewhere, of course, we have the many institutes in Singapore. There is also our visit to Centre for Quantum Technologies in NUS.

All these visits are made possible by the hosting institutes and centre and we appreciated their generosity very much. Note that these are distinguished centres that I dream to have collaborations with over time (we have to make our mark first) and they were kind enough to entertain our requests and thoughts of possible collaboration.

So, I'm a bit frustrated to see some of the comments on what we were trying to do, as if we were not thinking about national interest and the deeper stuff of what we are going to be. What more with all the constraints that we had. Anyway, whatever it is, the younger generation (and certainly the current university administration) needs to chart whatever future of the institute now.

For me, my thoughts now are simply on what else I can do for the relatively small theoretical physics group we have before I leave, which is not going to be long.

The Struggle and Scientific Events

Allah does not require of any soul more than what it can afford. All good will be for its own benefit, and all evil will be to its own loss. ˹The believers pray,˺ “Our Lord! Do not punish us if we forget or make a mistake. Our Lord! Do not place a burden on us like the one you placed on those before us. Our Lord! Do not burden us with what we cannot bear. Pardon us, forgive us, and have mercy on us. You are our ˹only˺ Guardian. So grant us victory over the disbelieving people.” (2: 286)

The above is a Qur'anic verse that we often recite. I put it here and am doing this post in order to balance out my last post that in a way degrades my own self. That's not how the story should end. So if one is not that good, what do we do about it? (A question that the late Prof. Twareque once asked me) One of the things that I did learn over the years studying abroad is that there is nothing intrinsically wrong about us. I have seen students in the places I have been, being good and bad. Some are of course gifted and some are not. When I realise I could be as good as the students abroad, maybe all the inferiority complex that we had experienced is illusory and are just cultural inhibitions. I have been also in situations where international researchers told me I might be wrong but as it turns out that I was right but of course there are also plenty of situations where I was wrong.

Another thing that is illusory is the thought that the scholars or students from the West had it easy. They struggle just like everyone else and they worked hard. I was fortunate to be able to bring my own students to workshops and conferences in NUS and NTU, just to have them see for themselves how others work. See pics below from various different occasions. Must thank Kwek, K.K. Phua and IAS for all these opportunities.

My fondest memory of these events over in IAS, is being able to participate in a forum with Nobel laureate David Gross, representing Malaysia. Below is a pic.

The lecture series that I have mentioned in this post, is another way to get students to experience how internationally renowned speakers work. By bringing this speakers here, more students get to experience to see how the way they think and work. Having a few of them together enable them to discuss theoretical matters 'live' before the students.

The important thing is to see how involved and stimulating the scientific culture that is displayed during these events. Their sessions are almost always full (unlike some of the local conferences that we see). Both organizers and speakers can be seen to be very committed in these scientific events. In my humble opinion, if we can do the same, we can progress as much as them. Some may say that we have a relatively shorter scientific tradition than some of the advanced countries (certainly not shorter than our southern neighbour). This is indeed true, which makes our tasks of elevating our scientific events much more important and pressing for us. The only thing that we have to be careful is not to spoil such events with 'business culture' with the aim of achieving KPIs. By doing so, most of the time, the scientific culture that we want to build gets destroyed. Over the last week or so, the social media has highlighted the problem of predatory journals. Let us not forget then, that there are dressed scientific events which are predatory too. Some people accused academics of going to conferences likening it as going for holidays but I rather say that making conferences as business events is much worse. I better end this here and let your imagination run wild.

Not Good Enough

This blog post will again not highlight things that I have achieved in the past but some negativities that I had to bear during my academic journey (well, okay, I'll 'brag' if I can overcome it). Most of them revolves around the theme of being 'not good enough'.

Let me begin with my family background which is like any other normal Malay family. My late father was a Chief Clerk in a district office. While not directly connected with science, my father maintained a lot of English reading materials in the house. If ever there's a connection to science, then it will probably be the Marvel comics that I used to read at a very young age. I remember conjuring up my own superhero characters right up to high school. For serious science, however, the mentality that we are brought up as a Malay is one with an inferiority complex. We tend to see others doing better and for us to do good, we have to work much harder. If ever my confidence grew, is during my undergraduate days. With only a (relatively) few of us in the class, I found myself comparably coping quite well with the theoretical subjects. However I was never the top of the class (just like high school), I still remember comparing myself say with Simon Twisk and Gerald Dunne. By the end of my honours year, I had interest to pursue supergravity and met a lecturer about it. But I was told that I don't have the personality to go through the stiff competition in that 'hot topic'.

When I joined the university, it was not like now with everyone tensed up about research. Our activities were mainly teaching and scientificwise, I was essentially bored and wanted badly to pursue research in frontier topics. It was not available back then. The one remark made during those years, that I still remember, was the statement that only one or two theorists will be enough for the department (at the time Dr. Zainul, a condensed matter theorist was still around). 

Later, I got lucky enough to be admitted to Part III of Mathematical Tripos, DAMTP in Cambridge. There, all my inferiority complex breaks loose. I was the only Asian in class. There were too many bright students and none of them I get to know well. The ones that I can remember most were Fay Dowker (who topped the class) and Nigel Burroughs (who always brings a teddy bear to class). I passed but I couldn't get into DAMTP, which was a bummer. Instead Mark Warner at Cavendish was willing to take me as a student but in an area that I did not imagine at the time would be interested in. So I moved to Durham. In Durham, there were less competition but the standards were high. I thought I can cope with the research but I seem to be doing not so well. Richard Ward, my supervisor was a bit concerned for me then, since I tend to read everything I can grab at the time. The most damaging remark was from the program coordinator, saying to me that I should ask my supervisor whether he still wanted to supervise me due to some poor exam results. I actually broke down then. I believe without my good friends Paul Fletcher and Patrick Dorey making up the good life there, I probably could have given up. I stayed till the end and finished my PhD in December 1990. As I touched down at the Subang airport, I was driven immediately to the Kuala Lumpur hospital. My father has been hospitalised for some time, without the family telling me about it. One day after, my father passed away. To add further pain to injury, as I reported for duty at the university, I was asked to give my services in Bintulu campus. My mother was in grief and now I had to leave her again after just coming back. Being in Bintulu, somewhat hardened my personality. Luckily I have friends like Mansor Ismail and Alias Radam who kept me 'alive' there in Bintulu.

When I returned back to the main campus, I felt that I was not welcomed, with some saying that my stay in Bintulu was too short. Those were the days there were no mobile phones (apart from ATUR phone) and internet; was pretty much isolated in Bintulu (once in a while, talked to my mum using the payphone). Fast forward a couple of years, started to push for theoretical physics but was advised not to rock the boat too much. When I was appointed as an associate professor in the year 2000, heard some people talking that I got it mainly because I was 'close' to the Dean then, Not sure how they saw that; I rarely meet him at the time (for that matter, any of my superiors throughout my career) and in fact, I was called up for something that I have wrote somewhere. It was pretty frustrating really particularly my application for the post was just because I was asked to do so. A lesson that I kept until this day.

When I joined the institute (IMM first, followed by ITMA and later INSPEM), all in my mind was just to pursue some theoretical directions. I tried to adapt myself to the vision of each institute. In IMM, I was pursuing visualization in (theoretical) physics. In ITMA, I was trying to align myself with the engineering directions (knowing INSPEM was formed just a few months after the Theoretical Studies Laboratory in ITMA) and tried to open up quantum information then. But that was stopped short. Finally in INSPEM, I tried to push for mathematical physics direction. Opened up discussions with Bakhadyr Khoussainov for a joint international laboratory (not knowing how complicated it would be) on Algorithms, Logic and Complexity. With Lamberto Rondoni in Polito, drafted a working paper for an international institute a la ICTP in Trieste and finally MICEMS (Malaysia-Italy Centre of Excellence for Mathematical Sciences) was actually formed. Somebody told me that all my actions were viewed by some as ones that simply benefit me. I'm truly puzzled by this claim. If one examines carefully, none of these moves were really in my areas of specialization. Sometimes I do feel like a stranger everywhere I go. In one instance, I was reminded about my late brother (their colleague then in a local university) was not as successful as they were. My heart was full of anger; why was this even brought up but I kept reminding myself that the person who said it was an elderly person (as old as my brother if he is alive). Coping with all of these, later I was told that I was not good enough to lead the institute. With my declining health, I wrote to the university that I would like to step down.

I wrote all these, not to be bitter, but more as a lesson for those who wishes to learn. I have not mentioned names apart from the earlier ones that had positive influence in my life. Sincerely, I felt many times that I am really not good enough and wished that I could be better and could have done more. It's ok if what I have done is considered not good enough as long as I felt deep down that I am trying to do something good (may Allah help me). God willing,  I plan to move forward regardless and hopefully retire peacefully by next year. Thank you for listening. Hopefully I will be good enough for happiness in the hereafter.

Hot Sunday Post

To start, my youngest son finally got the notification that he will need to get the second swab test tomorrow at 10am and his SPM papers within his quarantine period will be taken at some (yet to be specified) later dates after the quarantine. My guess, he will have a different set of exam papers to answer.

Second, we have a new additional family member (yet to have a unanimous decision for her name). See below for pics.

Presently, we need to observe her from climbing up for fear of her falling down.

I will not 'brag' about my past or opinions on many matters in this post and instead will just write about mundane things. Perhaps on the hot weather? According to this report, February until April are usually hot for Malaysia. The fans in all of the rooms are operating 24 hours. The airconditioner needs servicing as it is already dripping water. Only put it on when it simply gets too hot in the room. For servicing, I need to tidy up the papers that 'decorated' my office-bedroom. Since I have to shift loads of papers, I keep postponing the idea. Just need to withstand this worldly heat for the moment.

Sincerely tired of the way things are ...

Slow Solutions and Lecture Series Varia

First an update: despite my mention of having my son's swab test result will be out yesterday, no official result was announced. We however had an informal news that he was tested negative. Nevertheless, we will wait for the official announcement and instructions and my son stays quarantined at the moment, for the period of ten days. At this stage, we are worried about his SPM exam that is supposed to start next week. What would be the school/ ministry decision?

Second, on the issue of predatory journals, it seems to have quietened down a little. Maybe there were online discussions and forums about this, but I suspect that there will be very little change, if any, in the near future. My take on this, we can only start on individual efforts on changing the nature of how we publish our work. There will be sacrifices needed to be made, if so. As of now, I don't think there will be any high-level or collective decision forthcoming.

Opinions abound. We all have our own inflated sense of self-importance. So talk of changes and progress, contributions to society and nation, often sounded hollow when in reality, most of us are just in survival mode. That is why, I often just get switched off when opinions are given without corresponding actions. We will just do what we can do. Like a cynical comment that I have read (on a subject that I love) in the social media, talk is cheap.

At times, I felt that people just want quick solutions of the instant noodle type. However complex situations often require consistent small efforts leading to small changes (evolution type). Disruptive solutions can occur and usually made in times of crisis (like the current pandemic). Thus there is this window of opportunity now for us to think differently. Without creative solutions at hand, we will only be limited to the slow evolving type of solutions.

I remembered when I joined the university and was interviewed on what would be my contribution, I uttered something like bringing theoretical physics to the university and something to the effect like more of an international outlook. I also remembered that I sniggered on a remark passed and it offended one of the interviewer (not from the university). Luckily, the vice-chancellor then, had defended me on my reaction (otherwise, I might not have the current job).

I still maintain what I have said in the interview, fighting for theoretical physics and try to bring international visitors to the university. It is not an easy path, though, and there were many obstacles. Being an average theorist, I guess, only a few people would want to listen to me. I have already mentioned that I brought Paul Townsend to the university in a previous post. That was in the year 1997, when we had the International Conference on Frontiers in Quantum Physics (9-11 July) in which he was an invited speaker.

When I was appointed to be Head of Theoretical Studies Laboratory (TSL), ITMA in 2002, I had more flexibility of inviting people over and they are not necessarily "my guests" (e.g. Prof. Hongo as guest of Dr. Nik Mohd Asri and Prof. Ekrem Savas as guest of Prof. Adem Kilicman) as some would say. Rather spontaneously, the institute let me begin a lecture series called TSL Expository Lecture Series. The first one was held in January 2003 with visitors from Japan (Yoshitaka Tonimura and Tetsuyuki Yukawa) whom I borrowed from Prof. Lim Swee Cheng (see poster below).

The next one was held four months later in May 2003, where I have invited people I know, Kwek Leong Chuan from NTU, Singapore (CQT was not yet formed) and Jussi Kalkkinen from Imperial College and another is Hideo Sekino (I can't remember on whose invitation but he was lecturing on Theoretical and Computational Molecular Science). The third one in July 2004 with John Stillwell (San Francisco), Jorga Ibrahim (ITB - disciple of Andre Lichnerowicz) and Izumi Tsutsui (KEK). 

The fourth one is rather special as it was on Quantum Information and we were establishing a quantum information research lab then. It was held in November 29-December 2, 2005. It was also the 100th year commemorating Einstein's Annus Mirabilis papers. The speakers were Kwek Leong Chuan, Andrew White, Stephen Bartlett, Antia Lamas Linares and Keiji Matsumoto. 

We were confident then, we are going to pursue this area vigorously but fate had it otherwise. The laboratory was asked to merge with INSPEM but it is more of a closure. Perhaps we were not as productive as some would want us to be. At the time of closure, we already had the fifth lecture series planned and we carried this over in Faculty of Science. It was a really difficult time for me with little financial support and almost broke down. It was held in December 12-15, 2006 with speakers Holger Then, Martin Lueders, Donald Jacobs, Kuo Jer-Lai. One listed speaker Wang Jiang Sheng did not come. 

When I joined INSPEM, I started again the lecture series and renamed it as Expository Quantum Lecture Series (EQuaLS) - you can see some of the history here. Somebody senior came to me what did I get for all these events. My immediate reply is that we get to learn directly from the world's best in the respective topics. Apparently that was not enough. To justify further, we did pick up some of the topics of these lecture series and made them into our own research programs and published some papers. It actually take years to develop these programmes to see some results and they are not instant noodle types of programmes. 

Finally, one of the things I have noticed though, was after a few of our lecture series, others within the university and outside began their own lecture series. I am not trying to lay any claim here but it is nice to see that the idea catches on. My own view of doing the lecture series is to set up the right intellectual atmosphere in our environment where serious matters get discussed instead of the usual endless gossips and office politics. We need to bring our level of research to the internationally respectable level that we see abroad. With Covid-19 pandemic going on, face-to-face events like these may be difficult to do but the last EQuaLS 2020 event saw the opportunity of more flexibility of engaging good researchers from abroad online. I hope we do take that opportunity and continue this lecture series tradition even after I retire. 

Open Book Varia

Yesterday, my youngest son took his swab test at school and was the first one who took it. My other half took him there since I am considered a person of high risk. Did my duty of getting breakfast for the whole family though, after which I felt a little dizzy due to not having enough sleep. The results of the swab test should be known today. Hopefully it is negative, for otherwise the whole family will have to take a swab test.

This morning (few hours later), my students will be facing their final exam for statistical mechanics. Due to the online nature, it will be an open book test with four questions to answer out of a choice of five. The duration is for two hours and thus they have only half an hour for each - they will not have enough time to discuss. Doing an open book test is not easy. Since they can refer to notes, books and the whole of internet, the questions will not be direct but something which test their understanding. They should have seen the techniques to solve the problems before and hence doable. Thus, it requires some amount of thinking - exposing them to some problem solving techniques during the semester and then just put a different problem for the exam. Few questions will require description based type of answers to see whether they have understood the concepts.

Overall, I was not too happy with my teaching but I do hope they feel some form of excitement learning new things perhaps with some advanced ideas. If I have the chance to teach the subject, I will probably use a different book, an easier one. That will also mean I have to redo my notes again, if so. I know that for next semester, I will be teaching Special Relativity and Classical Field Theory (one course) and Advanced Quantum Mechanics (for another). So I might not meet the course again since I will be near retirement - in some way, I prefer to focus on quantum mechanics, perhaps gather my notes into a book. This will make my life a little easier. However, I leave this decision to be open.

Talking about openness, there is a nice blog post by Dave Snowden, "https://www.cognitive-edge.com/start-a-journey-with-a-sense-of-direction/" which begins with his own quote "The single most fundamental error of the last three decades is to try and design an idealised future state rather than working the evolutionary potential of the here and now, the adjacent possibles – it is impossible to gain consensus in the former, easier in the latter". Been following him for a while but I rarely see people here discuss about him, not sure why. He co-authored this field guide to managing complexity. Hope to read it at some point.

Final point of being open - I believe that I have been open to most people but being open does not make one should be comfortable with rudeness, which tend to come with all this cynical culture prevalent among social media users. A bit turned off.

What Keeps Me Up At Night?

In my previous post, I mentioned that I was not sleeping well the last several days. Despite being tired, let me show you an example of what kept me awake for the last few days:

Yup, essentially unfinished work that I need to do for students. The pics above are just part of a solution to a question of an assignment I have given to students to help them prepare for their final exam. It is actually just book work; a formula that appears in the text book that I have used for the course on Statistical Mechanics. Have not been getting the terms and factors right for the last few days and it drove me a little crazy. It is actually the specific heat for the boson gas above the critical temperature. It involves polylogarithm function and its expansion. Was the topic out of the ordinary? I look up older books to see if it is also in there. They were there, usually with different notation, but most of the time, it is just given without referring to where it comes from or how is it derived. So I did the work and finally got it right as was in the book. What I scribbled was not elegantly done, but I had enough of it. Usually, I would type it out properly but in this case, I was just too tired and simply scanned it as a separate file and attached them to an earlier solution (which calculates the entropy). There were other questions for which I have done the solutions too, one of which was problematic because it uses a different expansion from the one mentioned in the book. Hope what I have given them helps. Now, I have to move to other things - just had some messages from another class. Just to give an idea of what's involve in my teaching.

Recap from the last episode: my youngest son had to quarantine himself since he received the news that his class-mate was infected with Covid-19. We have been waiting since morning for instructions what to do next. Just came in, the ministry of health officials will be coming to the school and they will conduct the swab test for the whole class tomorrow (not stated when). Meanwhile, we will be keeping an eye on him to see whether he developed any symptoms.

To be continued ...

Too Close for Comfort

Been having bad dreams lately. Premonitions? I certainly pray not. I hope it is just my current state of not sleeping well.

Coincidentally, however the last two days, I received a message that my musician brother is not well. My other half advised that he be brought to a clinic for extensive check-up. I pray that it is nothing serious and that whatever ailment he is having will go away soon.

Next, today it is announced that the MCO will be extended until 4th March for the states of Selangor, Johor. Pulau Pinang and Wilayah. For the place I'm staying (Negeri Sembilan), it is back to CMCO which has less restrictions. It however amounts to the same thing since my place of work is in Selangor.

The next thing came as a surprise for all of us. My youngest has been going to school the past week or so as he will be facing the public examination of SPM this 22nd February (which was supposed to be in November-December last year). Late this evening, he received a message that one of his classmate had tested positive for Covid-19 and that meant he will be identified as a close contact. He was told to quarantine himself at home until further instructions. No private swab test is allowed and must wait for instructions from the Ministry of Health officials. What is going to happen to his SPM examination, we do not know yet. Just this morning, there was a news item that there is no Covid-19 cases among the SPM candidates. I guess that news is now outdated.

We certainly hope he will be tested negative and that he is healthy to sit for his exams. But as it is, the 10-day quarantine period for a non-minister person will go past the exam dates. Things are going to be haywire. For now, we have put him a separate room and will have our masks on when necessary. His brothers will have to share the other room. So for now, wait for the next episode ... 

Rolling the end credits ...

Predator (Journal)-Prey (Researcher) Problem?

It is hard not to notice that the Malaysian academia has been getting a lot of bad press lately. One issue that was raised that Malaysia is among the top five listed to be publishing in 'predatory journals' within the Scopus database. For physical sciences, Malaysia is the second. The source being the Scientometrics article by Macháček and Srholec entitled, "Predatory publishing in Scopus: evidence on cross-country differences". This was first brought to my attention by a colleague in UM in her social media post. Now, the problem is probably known to some of us much earlier, that there are Malaysian authors who send articles to unknown journals that might have very low level of peer review, but we did not know to what degree. To generally blame the authors capitalizing on such journals for their self-promotion is perhaps too hasty and needs a second proper look. This is in no way an attempt of condoning unethical practices but just being cautious on claiming what are the intents of the authors. We know very well, that academics are being pressured to publish as many articles as possible (sometimes rather at an unnatural rate) and probably will be in the sequence of causes for unethical practices. Hence, as such, one might need to look into more primary causes. By all means, do investigate what is going on and help how to solve this (which is more important). Personally, I have always cringed at the number of publications some super-prolific authors produce, sometimes producing at the rate of (more than) two articles per month. Think that's fantastic? Then try to read this. It always amazes me how much work that these authors can do. See also Malaysia cases in retractionwatch.

One of my reservations with the bad press is that the academia gets stereo-typed easily without a solution at hand and the innocent ones get hurt along the way. First, let us note that the problem is not unique to Malaysia but the fact that Malaysia is in the top five deserves swift attention. It is mentioned that the maturity of research culture plays a part in the matter. Indeed, Malaysia's research culture probably started during the IRPA days around forty years ago and this is relatively young. It will be interesting to study what influences the trajectory of the research culture and what has gone wrong. Second, current emphasis on the number of publications should be relooked carefully and simply typifying a caste system of publications can just backfire, One should learn about Goodhart's law: once a particular (numerical) indicator is identified, then it can be gamed by the players in the system. These numbers may appear objective but the problem is what meaning it carries is subjective. It is best to put proper peer review or measures of narrative nature in place. If there is no stable pool of experts in the country, just bring experts from abroad and beware of systemic bias. Third, be watchful of the publication culture and trends for the future. Being once a chief editor of a local journal, I am aware of so many problems with respect to the processes leading to publications. Finally, it comes to what I've said in a social media post, scientists publish their research to be read by other scientists in the same or related field. In other words, journals are there to serve specific community whether it is large or small (the same goes to conferences). There needs to be contextualization with regards to the fields or community. There are also trends for open access publications either by professional societies or commercial publishers and they may serve different interests. A nice debate can be found here. There is now a push for journals with arXiv overlay and it can be read here. Final point, do what is natural for researcher's ecosystem and there is no one single universal solution for all. While publishing is a must for scientists, where it should be, can be contextual. Not all research results are deemed publishable in journals (regardless of what tier it is) if proper peer review system is in place. Flexibility of producing technical reports (and books, which requires bigger efforts) could be put in place. I see this is still put in practice in some places (see e.g. https://scholarship.richmond.edu/mathcs-reports/). Or simply put one's publication on the arXiv (while there is no peer review, the content is still screened by the admin and scientists at large, and if not careful, one's category can get demoted to general physics or general mathematics) and there are cases of retraction.

The above are mere suggestions. Whether it may help solve problems or realistic enough to implement, I leave this to the experts. Initially, I did not want to be dragged into this sensationalised problem but I am concerned of the after-effects of the bad publicity.

Training Not Wasted

One of the great pressures for a theoretical physicist here is that there are very few of us and our publishing rate is lower than areas like materials science. Some have the opinion that theorists should aid the experimentalists in the country. This would have been nice if it can be worked out. When I came back from my PhD, some of the things I had explored is to study condensed matter physics - explored at least two areas: quantum Hall effect, which led me to study punctured surfaces, and colossal magnetoresistance via Jahn-Teller effect (had a student but then he did not complete his studies). These choices were made with the familiar mathematical tools I have been studying. I did try to start a study group for instance using the book of Fradkin on Field Theories of Condensed Matter and was planning to go on to Goldenfeld's Lectures on Phase Transitions and the Renormalization Group. Bought both books while I was in KOSEF-JSPS Winter School in Seoul. However the idea didn't last very long and everyone was back to their own interests. Was trying to figure out why did it not work out - perhaps the study group was biased more towards what I know than the ones that others might be comfortable with. Then I turn to CMR for which there is already a group here. Bought Dagotto's book on Nanoscale Phase Separation and Colossal Magnetoresistance, which is not quite a topic I'm comfortable with but perhaps more familiar to others. The theoretical part involves a lot of computational and simulation work but I was eyeing on Jahn-Teller physics due to its connections with geometric phases. Again it failed. Finally, I blurbed out something like let us now work on something that all of us know very little about (this was during the time when Prof. Usmani was in UPM). Of course, that didn't even get started.

Naturally, I went back into what I was familiar with and know more about. But that meant one will be working alone. Whatever my decision all that time, I did try to make sure that whatever training that I have gotten abroad will not go to waste. Despite what others would have thought, my firm belief is to repay back to the society with what I have learned. This brings me to another story. I remember bringing Paul Townsend, an expert on supersymmetry and supermembrane from Cambridge University, to our campus. It was rather unfortunate that his visit was not well-received (considered only as 'my' visitor) and when he gave talks, only a few came (felt so embarrassed then). I tried explaining to him that the small audience is possibly due to not many know about the subject matter that he was presenting. His reply startled me, stating something like that it is my job to make these subjects familiar to others. I have learned the lesson then that I should just pursue what I know to be important, regardless of what others think. Perhaps that's what shaped me to what I am today. 

Despite having gone through all these different phases, I am still open to exploring different areas. I try to be supportive when people are interested in other areas but I make sure I am grounded in theoretical physics and quantum physics. Because of this too, I do get offended when others try to persuade students from pursuing their theoretical physics interests. There are not many of us. Leave them be.

Rejab 1442

We are now in the month of Rejab, 1442 of the Hijri calendar. I will be exactly 60 years old within the month of Rejab according to lunar years; slightly older than my age in the Gregorian calendar. I would be retiring this month, had the Public Services Department uses the lunar calendar. It is said that the rough lifetime of 'ummat Muhammad (pbuh)' is around 60+ years of age. The world average of human lifespan as of 2019 (see https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy) is 72.6 years. With the current pandemic, I guess the average lifespan will certainly be lowered but I do not know to what degree. It is said that during the 1918 pandemic, life expectancy dropped by 11 years. There is already a study for Covid-19 pandemic here: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0238678 - I have not read it as yet. Note that this is a PLOS One article and with the current wake of criticism of open access journals, this journal is open access and one can read about the journal here (including criticisms). There is no intent of discredit here as many established publishers, they are usually serious with respect to peer review. 

With the above, in a way, I am trying to be ready for my departure. That is why I am trying to give as much as I can of what I know for now, hoping it will benefit somebody and passed as good deeds. I was hoping, in fact, to restart my technical and Malay blogs earlier this year. I had schemed in my head about writing Planck's discovery and its 120th anniversary on 14 December last year for Acu Frekuensi. However, I was bogged down with teaching the past few months, particularly with respect to the subject of Statistical Mechanics, which I don't have my own set of notes. Had used a difficult book (my bad) but it gave me new perspectives of how Boltzmann's great contribution to the subject. Did detailed derivations of many equations, some of which took me time for me to figure them out. In fact, I'm now detailing a particular solution to an assignment I gave that gave me problems with the factors in the expression. The general idea is ok but as they say, the devil is in the details. One lesson: Never simply trust a given equation from anywhere (books, lecture notes and even papers); eventually one finds mistakes.

At this age too, I can no longer work long hours like I've used to. In fact, yesterday I was physically down. Luckily it was the Chinese New Year public holiday. I had to postpone an appointment and stayed in bed for most of the day. So let us see if I can keep my blogs active and hopefully less rants on the social media.

Post-58

I think I ought to restart this blog back. Initially, I thought of keeping low profile until I retire but I have been posting too much on social media that would have defeated this idea in the first place, Sometimes the urge was too strong to resist posting and a lot of it was due to some painting ideas/events as completely in black and white (even 2-bit gray scale can show more features). Been part of management team for so many years, I guess, has spoiled me, in letting me see the various different contexts in understanding events/ideas. But posting too much on the social media can turn people off, which led me to post this. Maybe I will discuss some of these matters here in a different post, which is less intrusive.

I celebrated my 58th birthday last December. This means I have another two years of service left at the present university. Reflecting back, I wished that I could have done more for physics, mathematics and the university. It has been hard; just thinking about it, will make my eyes swell with tears. I could tell many stories, but at 58, one doesn't want to be bitter about whatever happened that made one's life difficult. As I have said earlier, I take all of it as fate and a test for me. I would like to continue with my remaining life, contributing in the small ways that I can. Perhaps, at least one contribution to the university that I can safely say is to form a theoretical physics group from almost nothing. Now, I have my ex-students, Dr. Chan, Dr. Nurisya and (hopefully soon Umair) joining the department to take over.

Let me continue what had happened during my 58th birthday. It was like a normal day in the beginning with me working at home. Then my youngest came to my room and told me that somebody wanted to see me downstairs. Puzzled, I went down to see what it is, with me wearing my 'kain pelikat'. Then I saw two ladies holding a bouquet of chocolates to say happy birthday. It was my wife who asked them to come to hand over the chocs. What a pleasant surprise (but I was a little embarrassed having the 'kain pelikat' on). Here is a picture:

That night we went out for a birthday dinner (it was only CMCO in Seremban then). I have been craving for satay for some time; the one dedicated satay restaurant that was in Seremban 2 has closed. So the whole family (my other half, second son and youngest) suggested that we go to the one in old Seremban city. Here is a pic.

The day could have been wonderful if not for receiving a copy of letter from a lawyer firm asking for compensation from a person (addressed to the said person) who had a broken contract with the university. I had known about this earlier as it happened when we were planning for EQuaLS (my guess is someone raised the matter when we had sponsorship). However I did not get any letter then (so was not thinking about it too much) but it was due to the letter being sent to a house that we had rented when we were staying in Bukit Chedang (that's how long ago it was!). This could really have bad consequences. I was upset the whole day long but I just do not know where to channel this anger. Perhaps I was a fool to trust people. For the next several days, my blood pressure was high (particularly the diastolic one), despite my regular intake of medication. And that prompted me to lay low. I get this feeling that some people do not like me and maybe prefer me to get into trouble.

Thereafter, and even now, I said to myself, I will leave my fate with Allah and I pray that I can retire peacefully without any trouble.