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.