Today is my Hijri birthday and I thought I should do another post. Yesterday, I received the news that the institute that I was in, will undergo through changes. I sincerely wish them all the best since the institute will be at its best only with those who are committed to work for the institute and the support that it receives. The news evoke some memories while I was there and this post is simply to share what I have wished for the institute. In no way, that this post is intended to put any form of influence on anyone in matters of the present institute.
Cutting Across Disciplines and Pushing Frontiers
I see the institute as a research body that can bring researchers of various disciplines together under a single roof, that will be different from the traditional structures usually found in the faculties. This, is of course, easier said than done as it divides the loyalty of the researchers. The way that I would have put it is that it belongs to the bigger single entity (the university) and work done in different parts of the entity should complement each other rather than compete with each other. Me being from the Physics Department, wished that more theoretical work that interface with areas of mathematics can be pursued there. In the west, there has been a lot of interactions between theoretical physicists and mathematicians in pushing the frontiers of science. One can read Bott's article here for a glimpse. See also Sir Michael Berry's views here among others.
To be at the frontier, one should be aware of the developments in one's area. For my group, I have always encouraged our group members to check the repository arXiv.org for daily/weekly updates of papers. The repository is good for physics and mathematics as well as computer science. For other subjects, one can look at bioRxiv for biology, chemRxiv for chemistry, medRxiv for health sciences, PhilArchive for philosophy, RePEc for economy and socArXiv for social sciences. Other repositories can be found here. We also used our weekly group meetings to discuss papers of their interest (note: no single person could keep up with the exponential growth of papers, so a group effort seems necessary).
Flux of Ideas with International Outlook
We used to have a good (international) visitor program for the institute. But as use of funds get more restrictive, we were unable to do it as frequent as we want. If one looks at well-known maths institute, they normally have strong visitor programs. Much of this is due to ensure that the institute has ongoing flux of research ideas beyond ones that are internally developed. More so, if our international staffing is quite low (I can recall that most of our international staff is leaving), then a regular visitor programme should be desirable.
Our group regularly holds EQuaLS and the event invites internationally well-known researchers to the institute. I remember fondly how this event are being looked forward to almost each year by our (network of) researchers. Each time we have the event, it gives a breath of fresh air and we saw how frontier ideas are being debated live in front of our eyes. I take particular note that due to our shyness of our local audience, the group of international visitors actually demonstrated to us how they throw (critical) questions to each other, the very least. In fact, the lesson is not only within lectures, but during our social functions, we get to see ideas are being brewed.
Beyond Black-Box Mathematics
This is perhaps the most important dream of all that I have for the institute. Once, a high-level academic/administrator told me that institutes should be in areas where we have strength (usually translated as numbers). In my private thoughts, so that we have more of the same thing? I think differently. When it comes to research, I think one of the most important aspects is that we have a good and deep understanding of the mathematical language that we use (not to treat it as a black box) and this goes even within mathematics itself. To a certain extent, I see the small number of (local) pure mathematicians with our maths academia as a problem and extending this, the small number of theoretical physicists within our physics academia. We can't rely just on the few individuals that are already find difficulties to survive; instead we need to build a strong tradition of good mathematical thinking and strengthen whatever our small number there is. In my humble personal thoughts, this has actually held us back. If ever, we are hoping to have people that could do mathematical breakthroughs, the tradition needs to be put in place very soon as we are quickly being left behind in frontier areas.
Institutes are not new. There are very good mathematical institutes abroad that we can learn from. To this, I would like to point out the policy statement of Isaac Newton Institute of Mathematical Sciences for our reference.
To end, I always remember this cautionary do'a of not putting our personal whims as unrealized fantasies and that our strive is meaningful.
No comments:
Post a Comment