Today I posted on FB saying that I've turned 60 and received a lot of reactions (and questions). Actually I'm now 60 years old according to the Hijri calendar. I almost forgotten about it but I knew it was sometime soon. When I checked the Hijri calendar early this morning, it happens to be today (25 Rejab) and spontaneously posted it on FB. How do I get to know it is 25 Rejab is the Hijri date? Well, some might think that I may be using a calendar converter. Actually, no. It was one of the things I remembered about my late father jotting in his diary, the birthdates of all his sons and daughters, every time he changed to a new one. Remembered mine, right up to the hour I was born. So it got stuck in my mind. Realising today is my Hijri birthday, I wasn't initially thinking of celebrating but tonight will be pizza night with my family.
The age 60 years is the official retirement age of public servants in the country. Some went ahead to greet me and said welcome to the retirees' club. Unfortunately, I have not retired as yet. Have about less than two years to go. In the meantime, I will try to fulfill my duties accordingly. As in yesterday's post, have finished my marking which is such a chore and hence glad that it is over. I still have to get the reports done and if I'm unlucky, some committee may scrutinise the results and I will have to answer appropriately. Hopefully it will not get to that.
This morning, had a meeting cum briefing for proposal evaluation panel of the university. Concurrently, there was another meeting of the science congress event we are coorganising with institutions from Thailand and Indonesia - see http://conference.upm.edu.my/IFSC2021?&lang=en. I chose the evaluation panel meeting since this is a bit critical given that there is a risk of being penalised by the ministry if the evaluation does not go as planned. I will have to take some time off tonight to see the proposals assigned to me.
Later today, had some (virtual) discussions about changes in the curriculum. Some of the changes did surprise me and if implemented well could be a good change. Care must be taken assumptions of the prerequisite knowledge that is assumed. For instance, one-dimensional wave mechanics can now be taught earlier in Modern Physics and one can straight away begin the quantum mechanics directly with the bra-ket formalism. That is in fact, the way I have learned it in Adelaide but of course I had more quantum-related courses. In fact, we had quantum field theory, particle physics and general relativity courses in the fourth year. Not sure if they are planning such change because there may be little interest in these subjects. We did draft a quantum information course sometime last year (I think) but not sure if this is considered for the new curriculum. If the department is in need of more theoretical courses, I can think of a few. If field-theoretic operators can be introduced, then one can do quantum optics and quantum many-body physics. The latter may lead to more recent interesting ideas in condensed matter. Another one that comes to mind is complexity science mix-matching statistical physics, nonlinear physics and networks. These could, of course, be given separate courses, treated with more depth (maybe at a graduate level). But then the usual question is: are there any takers from students and who will teach these courses. Since I won't be around then (new courses may take awhile to be endorsed by the university), I leave this to the younger colleagues to pursue, if interested.
Finally, despite being 60, I'm still not out of ideas and things to do. As I have mentioned to Bob, will keep on rocking in the way I could.
No comments:
Post a Comment