The Weeks That Were

We are in the last ten days of Ramadhan 1443 (today is 23 Ramadhan). Most Muslims will now tend to enhance their religious deeds during this time. Particularly, many hope to find the night of Lailatul-Qadr. Like everyone else, my simple wish is to be granted forgiveness and that I can maintain what I have been practising for this Ramadhan thereafter. Additional prayer is that my family will have a good life when I am gone. In this phase, I try my best to avoid negativities, difficult people though this is difficult.

An academic's work is never finished and goes beyond office hours. There will always be something to do (lectures, tests, seminars etc.) with research gaseous expansion. I'm not complaining but merely trying to say that we are not sitting idle. The fact that I'm almost retiring, there does not seem to be letting off and lightening up the burden. Indeed I am really desperate trying to graduate my present students. But on top of this, I have still to worry about the assets that were purchased under my name (as either Head of Laboratory or the Deputy Director). With the help of my younger colleagues, we have been trying to trace assets bought while I was at ITMA (this was around twenty years ago). Around two weeks ago, I was given a new list with relatively recent assets purchased while I was at INSPEM. I told my colleagues, if there is really a threat for us to replace lost assets (and they are not necessarily used by the person named), nobody would like to take up the positions of the Head or Deputy Director/Director in this case. I sincerely hope the manner that these things are handled will change, if so. As long as these matters are not settled, it would continue to trouble me. Right now, I'm very much dependent on others to help me because I do not personally have the whereabout details of the assets as they are normally used by others.

With the Ramadhan fatigue setting in, I was contemplating my post-retirement future. With age, I easily get tired though I have not let this deter my scientific passion. I do need to find a (paid) job after retiring to help me pay bills. Just two weeks ago, my youngest son informed me that his college bills has yet to be paid; the one that has been paid before was only his semester fees. So, with my recent dental treatment, car services and now the college fees on top of the regular expenses, this month's budget seems to be a bit tight. Currently, I do still have my third and youngest sons' education to cover. On a happier note, my youngest son seems to be settling well in the college. The only slight problem recently, was his bank card got blocked and we had to send him cash last Saturday. Hopefully when he is back for Eid holidays, the bank card matters can be settled. Here is a photo of my youngest with his room mates after Tarawih prayers.

Yesterday was also my second son's birthday. We bought him a cake for iftar the day before to have a simple celebration. (Note: to the Muslims, the day started with Maghrib - see here). Here are some pics.

The Week of EQuaLS2022

This week, we had EQuaLS2022, which began on Monday, April 11, and ended two days ago (Thursday, April 14). As I have mentioned many times before, this is an event that we look forward to each time it is organized because we are able to listen to researchers who are really at the frontiers of science. To the institute or the university, the presence of these well-known researchers may lent some sense of prestige to the institution. More importantly, as Prof. Kwek once mentioned to me, the event actually allows the international community gets to know the presence of our theoretical community in Malaysia and I would imagine at some point that we can be identified as an actively contributing local community (small as it may be). Bringing us back down to earth, I tend to treat these events more for our learning at a very fast pace. 

The event had the following invited speakers:

• Bob Coecke (Quantinuum-Cambridge Quantum)
  
• Davide Girolami (Politecnico di Torino)
• Arne Grimsmo (The University of Sydney/Amazon Web Services Centre for Quantum Computing)
• Yeong-Cherng Liang (National Cheng Kung University)
• Ahmed Jellal (Chouaib Doukkali University)
• Yuxiang Yang (The University of Hong Kong)
• Rainer Dumke (Center for Quantum Technologies)
• Yutaka Tabuchi (RIKEN Center for Quantum Computing)

Apart from Bob, the other speakers are invited by my younger colleagues and students, in order for them to get speakers of their choice. It is also good that we have our UTM colleague Dr. Yap Yung Szen who invited his experimentalist colleagues from Japan and Singapore. As I have said before, this EQuaLS is the second one not chaired by me. Here are some pics from the event.

The advantage of not being involved in the administrative part of the event allows me to focus more on the lecture materials, and I tend to learn more by listening rather than reading which tends to be slower (maybe due to part of my brain that has adapted to music?). So, this time round, I found myself learning better. For instance, from Rainer Dumke's talk, I get to learn better about transmon qubits. In his talk, there was even a virtual tour to his lab (the first for EQuaLS) 0 see pics below.

When organizing events such as EQuaLS, one of my usual worries of the tendency of our Malaysian audience that tends to be quiet at the Q&A. In the past when we had face-to-face EQuaLS, we enjoyed the exchange of questions and answers among the speakers themselves. With the online platform, the burden of Q&A rests upon the participants themselves, particularly the chairman who should get the ball rolling if everyone turns out to be quiet. This time round, it seems that we have grown to be better. I, myself, asks some questions (misplaced or not). I followed the advice that I gave to my own students. The idea is not to act smart but rather look for places that one wishes to know a little more. There are bound to be some aspects that one does not know or one does not quite understand when it was presented during the talk. 

EQuaLS2022 ended on the World Quantum Day and it is precisely for this reason that we have shifted the event to April (in the past, we normally have it at the end of the year or very early in the year). When we first announced the event, we were not really aware (at least I am) that it falls in Ramadhan. Given that the event is a virtual one, there was no real problem with it being in Ramadhan - we do not serve any meals at all for virtual events.

To signify that this day is an important one, we had a public talk just to end the EQuaLS2022. I played a minor role of inviting Bob Coecke to do the public talk since I have invited him to Malaysia a few times (physically). The title of his talk is Quantum AI From High-School Quantum Pictures (see poster below). I have been fascinated by his diagrammatic approach for some time and he is now well-known for this approach (ZX-calculus), but I knew him by name even during the quantum logic days. Another (more subtle) topic that he is well-known for is his idea of compositionality (taking this abstractly separate from the diagrammatic technique); he did not elaborate much on this in the talk, but I did ask something at the end, alluding cryptically to this aspect, for which I wanted to know more of his insights. 

I was given the honour to chair his talk and I must say, I was pretty nervous about it. I planned some clever things to say about him and his work like saying something about the language of mind is images (I can't really find a formal reference to this point), but in the end I just read something that the secretariat (which is from Wikipedia). I even forgotten to mention Quantinuum, the name of the company after the merger of Cambridge Quantum Computing with Honeywell, and he is still a Fellow of Wolfson College. In any case, the participants are there not to hear my ceremonial introduction but more for his talk. For those who missed the talk, I have uploaded his talk on my YouTube channel (see below).

This will be my final EQuaLS event while I am still in UPM. I do hope my younger colleagues will continue the tradition still, even after I retire. I am not sure how frequent they will organize the event and whether they will make it coincide with World Quantum Day. Since World Quantum Day is celebrated, it may be competitive to get well-known speakers. Anyway, I leave this to the wisdom to my younger colleagues.

An Off Day

Yesterday was an off day for me. Ever since I had the message regarding assets under my name and the threat of replacement payment if they are not found, my mind went into a worried state. In the past, I have noticed that my brain simply switches off when I'm in a state of great stress. Once during a meeting with my PhD supervisor, I almost passed out due to being stressed out. Coupled to being tired in Ramadhan and all the travel, I was not quite myself yesterday and was in a drowsy state. I fumbled a little bit while teaching my Relativity class, which is particularly depressing. I need to make it up with the students by perhaps revisiting the problem in the next class or maybe I will do just a recording to give further explanation on the topic where I fumbled.

Right after the class, I met my FYP student for a discussion. Yes, I am still taking a student despite that I will be retiring in the next semester. This is because the student wanted to do a project on cosmology and I was the one who had some experience in the topic. So a deal is made with my younger colleague, that she will take over once I leave. Before this, I had asked the student to read Ellis' Issues in the Philosophy of Cosmology article which touched upon many issues, for him to pick up a particular topic. So, during the discussion yesterday, he was supposed to tell me what topic that he has chosen. When he said, multiverse, I was caught off-guard since I did not expect that he chooses that and is not quite in my interest. However, I took up the challenge and asked if he had been reading other articles, but he had not. Later in the afternoon, I had to search articles on the topic to see what has been discussed. Immediately after my meet with him, there was an online presentation by my ex-PhD student but I was not paying attention since I was in a bad shape of drowsiness.

Fast forward to the time of my driving home from work, it was already raining. The traffic was moderately heavy and vehicles are moving rather slowly. Somewhere after Bangi exit, I was on the second lane and a bus was trying to get into the lane, after which I distanced my car a little bit to let him in. Right after the bus was in the second lane, my thought was just to overtake the bus using the fast lane. So when I switched to the third fast lane, suddenly the bus swerved in front of me into the fast lane. My automatic reaction was to give him a big honk. If I was any faster, I could have easily crashed into the bus or hit the divider to avoid the bus. So when the bus switched back to the second lane, I braved myself to overtake the bus. My thoughts were if the bus driver is a little crazy, he could easily squeezed to the right and caused my car to hit the divider. Alhamdulillah, he let me passed by.

Reaching home, I was in a slight bad mood. It was still raining and I had to park my car a distance away from my home since some workers had already installed the front gate and the ramp into the front porch was not ready for use. The picture below was taken before the rain.

Slight good news during iftar yesterday is that my youngest will be returning home today to spent his Ramadhan with us during the weekend. I will be looking forward to meet him today. If I had the luxury, I would have taken leave but I still need to settle this asset issue. A lot of frustration was building up in me since most of the assets were not really used by me but was bought during the time I was the Head of Laboratory in ITMA before the lab got closed down or merged with INSPEM, whichever way one wants to interpret it. Indeed this is another reason why people tend to decline taking admin positions since they are subject to all these risks and responsibilities and in many circumstances without proper support.

Later that night, I prayed that Allah eased up my path for retirement and if there is an opportunity, will be finding another job.

Observing in Ramadhan and EQuals 2022

Today is the fourth of Ramadhan and April 6th. Went to office everyday (and stayed there the full hours) as a good kid. Saw some changes while I was driving to work the last few days, Saw more cars on the road since Monday. My initial thought is that this is probably because that from April 1st, the government has announced that Malaysia is on transition to an endemic phase. With more cars on the road, my travel to work will be more difficult (and riskier). The cars are even slower, causing even more congestion. It is a pity that we did not change too much our work lifestyle by allowing work from home (WFH), which would have made much more economical and environmentally sense. Even our earlier WFH announcement for academics was really premature; it was changed to the flexibility of punching-in at least once in campus for the day (yes, Malaysian academics have to punch-in, which surprises a lot of my international guests earlier). Malaysia has also opened its international borders and started to receive more international flights. Soon, my son who works at the airport will be even busier with more international flights coming in. His 'Eid holidays are already frozen and will have to be back at work by the second day of 'Eid.

As I arrived in campus early morning each day, I found that the parking spaces are filled up more than usual. Initially, I was surprised but then I guessed this is due to people getting up early for suhur and went to office early. Apparently, the university has implemented new flexible working hours, allowing staff to come to work as early as 7.30 am. This would allow staff to go home for iftar earlier in the evening. This flexibility would made sense for those who are living nearby the campus. but for me, if I wanted to be that early, I would have to go to work almost right after the Fajr prayers. I stick to the normal working hours and avoid the rush.

It is funny that given Ramadhan is a month of fasting, refraining from food during the day, our culture tend to make it more festive of food by the end of the day with all the Ramadhan bazaars opening up. There has been concern of food wastage during this fasting month and one should try to really reduce this. In the past, I would have to rush to the bazaars to get food for the family since both of us (me and my other half) are working and there is really no time for us to prepare food at home. Luckily, this time, there is a cafeteria in campus (behind the institute) that sells food for staff to bring home for iftar. Hence, whenever I'm free, I could grab some food before I get home and avoid the bazaars (usually packed with people). I am also consciously making our Ramadhan less about food and more about making additional prayers and Qur'an recitation and reflections. Let's hope it can stick that way, all the way.

Arriving home yesterday, they have finally finished our balcony near our room. The one which is not completed is our front gate.

I was in high spirits and looking forward to work the next day with first two students' presentations for the graduate seminar course. Then came a threatening message about record of university assets under my name that needs to be checked before I retire. Earlier I have been made aware about this but it came at a very bad time, while we were preparing for the final exams. These assets are really purchased around twenty years ago (while I was in a different institute) or more and it would take time to find their whereabouts. In the institute, I would have been helped by staff there but I guess I can't now. I remembered the former secretary to the department had to come to office after retiring just to search for lost assets under her name, purchased God knows when (really pitied her but now it is my turn). Could we do this differently and cared more for our own staff? For the rest of the day, I was worried and in a bad mood.

Luckily this very early morning, I have received some good news on a totally different thing. This lifted up my spirits back again. Next week, we will be organizing EQuaLS 2022, all organized by my younger colleague. I have distanced myself from any management matters and decision-making (both at the department and the institute). It is time for the younger staff to shine. The only thing I did, was to get Bob Coecke to speak at the event. This morning, I received an email from Bob that he will be giving a talk on "Quantum AI From High School Quantum Pictures". This sounds exciting and I look forward to the talk, which is a public talk on Quantum Day. I was given the honour to chair his talk. My younger colleague wanted to get me also for some opening remarks for the event but I have declined. I told her that we should do less of these ceremonial matters and leave the opening remark to the Director of the hosting institute. I hope the event will go well.

Ramadhan 1443

Alhamdulillah, I manage to experience another Ramadhan for this year. Indeed at this age, one just feel so fragile and at times unwanted, as our physical body no longer as strong as usual. My Ramadhan this time, began with me in a bad back episode. Just before fasting, I had to take Tramadol, just to ease the pain a little. The drowsy effect often lingers for a few days and I struggled a little to keep myself awake in the weekend. So, for the first Ramadhan night, we prayed (the whole family together except for my youngest who is in Jasin) only at home. My second son too was also on a night shift for his BP lab work at KLIA. That would make going to the mosque or surau to be in a rush for him to make there for work. 

In my heart, Ramadhan provides me another point to refocus on what is necessary for my next life, but also for my own personal worldly life. Given the seminar course that I am handling, I have now bought a domain for my own self. Usually this is meant for (small) businesses but for me it was just to ease my handling of the seminar. Part of the reason is to allow me to record the presentations using Google Workspace (was told that the university no longer has this facility - I did not check), but also there seems to be other facilities that I am beginning to learn. Who knows, maybe some of these will end up being useful for me in the post-retirement period. Not sure what kind of business I will be in, but for now it is mainly for the purpose of my scientific ambitions. I do hope that the students will take the seminar course seriously as I am (triggering me to buy the domain). By recording their presentations, it is hoped that the students will take their own presentations seriously.

My third son also came back home last Friday, simply to be with us during early Ramadhan. So yesterday, my other half entertain his request (for tauhu bergedil) and we had home-cooked meal for iftar (see pic), nothing from the bazaar just yet.

I also remembered that his birthday was just a few days away. So I decided to buy him a cake for an early birthday celebration before he heads back to campus yesterday night.

It is a pity that our youngest was not with us for iftar. We also found that the cafe at his college is not open for sahur during the first night. I hope this is temporary. A little worried for him. He is scheduled to be back with us for Eid on the 28 April. May Allah ease our way through this Ramadhan and made us all as better persons. Ramadhan Mubarak.