To Work Or Not To Work

Yesterday I was not feeling myself and had to rest the whole morning in order for me to stay fresh during Friday prayers. Without my kids at home, drove myself to the nearby surau. After Friday prayers, help my other half to dry our clothers in S2 Heights and thereafter had our late lunch.

By Maghrib, it was raining heavily, my other half received a call from my third son. He told us that one of the tyres had burst. We panicked. We borrowed a car jack from our neighbour and drove to my son's location. Thankfully enough, he was alright, alhamdulillah and the car was at the side after exiting the toll. When we reached there, there was already a guy talking to him nearby. Apparently this good samaritan has helped our son to change the tyre with the spare. He told us that he is always driving around to see if anyone needs help and at the same time promote his insurance sales. In my mind, he is working hard to make a living but I'm really glad he was around to help. Out of the little cash I had in my wallet (meant for my other half to buy food at Seremban Main Market early morning tomorroe), I offered him some amount of cash as a token of appreciation. Initially he declined but we insisted for him to have it.

The good samaritan actually told us that all the tyres are almost worn out and may need replacement soon. My son had not even got his first pay for this new job. It was in these moments, I felt that I need to work to help support the family. I have actually given up hope and felt I need to rest more at this old age. If I work, it will also introduce another problem. My eldest is now using my other half's car to work and my other half used mine instead. The eldest had an old second hand car which has not been used and most probably needs massive repair. If I work, then it will spoil the current arrangement. If I don't, I felt useless and most probably we don't have enough to go by. Praying for a good solution.

Today, he help drive my other half and her sister to visit her nephew who broke both his arms. Some photos.

Mid-December Post

Yesterday I completed my editing of former PhD student's paper. Yes, it took me a long time to do it. Part of this is due to me relearning some of the technical contents of the paper particularly on Tsallis statistics (I may or may not do a blog entry on this; just watch this space). But I won't lie, I had my time spend mostly on the things I've been doing all this while; updating myself with papers on arXiv. When Jussi Kalkkinen asked me a long time ago, which 'counters' do I follow and when I gave my reply, he said that is a lot to follow (mainly because of my wide interest). Today I follow slightly less - removed cond-mat and physics from the list (the latter is mainly because I had interest in complex networks and its applications). Actually, I wanted to add cs counter due to my interest in logic and right nw AI but then I thought that the cross-listings should be enough for me. By next year, I hope to reduce this further. My other half is already 'complaining' why am I still 'working' given that it is very slim that I can get back to academia. I have no answer to that; perhaps, there will be a time when I will stop reading science altogether or maybe my departure comes earlier.

My son from JB came back home on Saturday evening to spend time with us. However he has gone back to JB around four hours ago as he has to work tonight at 11pm. Normally when any of my sons come back home (before this - now my eldest and third sons are living with us), we will have some special meals. Yesterday night, after my eldest came back from work, ordered some extra food to add to the existing food carried over from the day before. I can see the smiles of my sons' faces along with my other half's. For me, I simply do not want any of my family to go hungry in any way. That is why I kept looking for a job despite my retirement; not to enrich ourselves and live a lavish life, but to make our lives to be worry-free (enough savings for emergencies) and continuing support for the family. Anyway, with all my sons working (except the youngest), I hope things will get better. For the youngest, I hope there's enough for his semester fees and his pocket money.

So this morning, we had breakfast outside in a 'mamak' restaurant (my eldest however did not join since he often goes to work by 6.30am). Here's a pic.

Since my other half had her eyes closed, my son asked Gemini to modify the photo to have her eyes open.

Here is Ihsan before he leaves for JB.

Narratives and Past Experience

I read with interest the narrative of the recent ASEAN Quantum Summit. Once again, I say bravo to the organizer team that made this happen.

Here, I merely want to make comparison of my own experience of organizing events, which I consider as a different experience. When I was with the institute, I believe we have done many events (associated with quantum science or not). At one time, I do notice that our events almost did not get the exposure in more formal media. I did mention this to the committee then and had the committee work harder with respect to the publicity. Once I thought it was just probably that our events were 'mathematics-based' and appeared less sensational to cover as it seems that there are no 'physical' showcases for people to see. Next, I recall hearing a remark that these are merely events of this nobody 'Dr. Hisham'. A prevalent narrative among 'office politicians' then was events are done for 'glorification' (of individuals/institutions) and less on the importance of the materials they carry. After awhile, I tried to fade myself in the background though this is more difficult than I thought (given my administrative post). The next level of realization is perhaps one was considered not to be favoured by some, particularly for highlighting events. I certainly remember the two instances that my pic was cropped out from the picture that appeared in the more official media. Of course, these were among other more subtle things. Thus, finally I took a rest from holding positions. 

Why am I recalling all these stories? The very human reason is it is seared deep in my mind but a better reason would be to help others learn. In any case, I am happy to be given the opportunity to do things that I believe in like EQuaLS. I was told that the series had some form of impact. I was asked to write about EQuaLS in the AAPPS Bulletin: see the article here. The biggest EQuaLS event that I did was the 6th Asia-Pacific Conference & Workshop in Quantum Information Science (EQuaLS 6). When I was first asked about hosting this conference, I wrote to a few individuals about the idea given my worry that it would not get the support it needed. At the time, I had already some experience in chairing very specialized conferences and the difficulty to get people to participate (what more if the requirement is to generate income; in most cases we would be simply satisfied if we could just break even). In the end, we proceeded with all the risks in mind. Here is the group pic.

This is me with Bob Coecke (left) and Robert Spekkens (right) during the conference dinner (note: both are Birkhoff-Von Neumann Prize recipients).

Being old, I wish that Allah remove the desire of fame and glory from my mind and what is best for me is the record of good deeds. I take those things I have mentioned above are simply fate and in the end all I want is husnul khatimah (may Allah grant me this). If it is granted that what we do has the bonus of people's good narrative then Alhamdulillah, otherwise it is also Alhamdulillah (good for the heart).

Note added: Yesterday, again I had to babysit all the cats at home as my other half went to a conference at Movenpick Hotel, KLIA (my son Izhar drove her there). The conference is necessary for the doctors to collect points for their annual practicing certificate. Here are some photos.

Me and the cats:

Ontok-Ontok

I just saw several different pics from the ASEAN Quantum Summit. Well done and I look forward to what comes next for us in Malaysia. I would like to explain my absence there despite the suggestion of a younger colleague from Xiamen to get funds to go there. My response then is that it is better to fund a younger person to go there. The actual main reason is purely economic as travel requires substantial money, which I don't have much right now. Even when my other half went to visit her nephew who was hospitalised (broke both of his arms and underwent surgery), I did not go. When you don't have enough, in the language of Rawa, "dudok rumah, ontok-ontok" (stay home quietly). 

It would have been nice to meet friends at the summit, but besides that, what added value would I be? I recalled my own trip to SQST 2024, I thought that my presence would have meant something but upon reflection, it meant little, I think (financially got burned instead but it was my mistake). So it is much better for me to sit back and watch how things unfold. It is good to see how quantum science & technology is garnering more attention but then it prompted the thought if (almost) everyone wants to jump on the quantum bandwagon, should I be doing the same. It is the same pattern of thought during my early career years when I tried to do quantum but everyone else is doing materials science or condensed matter physics. Here, I'm not trying to say that one should shy away from joining the crowd but merely thinking what 'new' value can one bring. It is certainly not a 'rebel' since rebelling is just a manifestation of arrogance (recall Al-A'raf 11-25). Indeed, in those early days, I did make a few attempts to go into condensed matter without much success (not trained for that).

Just to demonstrate that I am not close-minded, I still read books on AI (another favourite these days) and listen to AI podcasts. This morning, had just listened to Hannah Fry's interview of Shane Legg of DeepMind, which I really liked. This is because of it is more level-headed in comparison to many others. Perhaps the current rave about AI is not quite understood by many. Unlike the internet disruptive technology that takes time to develop because of the needed infrastructure had to be developed first, the current AI technology simply uses the same infrastructure and hence its disruptive nature will be realised more swiftly 'everything, everywhere all at once'. Just to give an example of an existing AI tool that everyone has been using (crept in silently but swiftly) is the navigation assistant like Google Map or Waze for our travel. I think the younger generation would probably not know how we used to have literally awkward cumbersome paper/book maps to help navigate our travel. Generalise this: consider how further developments of AI  now can augment our everyday tasks and that possible paths that AI-augmented future can take seems to be endless. Thus the current thought of AI disruption of our lives within a decade or less (note that we should remind ourselves that the future can be very different than the ones that we are imagining and AI are simply 'created' tools subject to the same physical laws as all creations). So for now, "ontok-ontok bolajar"and be well-prepared.

The Raffia String Collaborator

Not many people know that I tried to dabble with string theory during my PhD studies, It became the last chapter of the thesis and extended the work of Isham and Linden. However, I consider it as incomplete since I did not get to construct the representations of the canonical group (which is a loop group). At the time, I was rushing to finish my studies as my scholarship was about to end. I did try to learn about loop groups and even bought the (expensive) book by Pressley & Segal (at the time only available in hardcover) but it became too difficult for me. This chapter never got published (apart presenting it in a lcal conference and Mike Gunn was there during the conference, asking questions about the construction); I knew it hasn't got enough material to appear as a proper paper.

I have not done any work on strings since then. Fast forward to the present, a different 'string' became my preoccupation and I have a collaborator. Being mostly at home, I had to babysit my cats while the rest go to work. The three-legged cat, Hitam, is the most active and I had to play with him to get him settled down.

Here is a video of how he likes to do 'research on strings'.

Perhaps this will be my permanent 'job'.

What Has Changed

The year 2025 is about to end. Soon, I will be 63. What has changed? Plenty, but the question of interest is usually whether the change is one that one wishes for. There, one might be forgiven to say nothing has changed, which is more of a figure of speech. Me, being at home mostly, will not see much change with most days of me having the view below.

Let me return to the year 2025, which has been declared as the International Year of Quantum Science & Technology. There were many activities and announcements of quantum events in Malaysia including the mention of a national quantum team by our Prime Minister (see here). Also, earlier in the year, MIMOS announced Quantum Intelligence Centre and organized MIMOS Quantum Day. Just recently, they invited Dr. Azman Husin to give a talk in MIMOS.

I knew Azman Husin through a fellow theoretical physicist, Zainul Abidin Hassan in UPM earlier in my career (Zainul took an early retirement, a few years after he came back from his PhD). Azman also wrote a Malay textbook of Quantum Mechanics, which I did refer to for my teaching (the book is now left with Dr. Nurisya, I think).

Coming to the end of the year, UTM organized two different events for quantum science and technology. First, International Conference on Quantum Computing and Quantum Communication Technology, which was a surprise and I was told that it was organized by their Computer Science Faculty. Next week, UTM will once again organized ASEAN Quantum Summit. Given these two events, it seems that UTM is taking a lead in quantum science & technology. In the past, 'we too' have done many quantum events in UPM through EQuaLS (the last one was last year). This year, UPM collaborated with UM in organizing UM-UPM Entangling Workshop on Quantum and NISQ Algorithms. Recently, my former student (with coauthors) submitted this paper on arXiv: Quantum Diplomacy Within The Southeast Asia Quantum Ecosystem. Perhaps the paper is prepared in anticipation of the coming workshop next week. Another related matter is the formation of Malaysia Cryptology Technology and Management Centre and they have organized an International Conference and Exhibition on Post-Quantum Cryptography Technologies.

I was not involved in any of the mentioned 2025 events above but I do follow them with interest. It does seem that the quantum field is garnering more local interest these days, unlike when we first pursued them. I hope it will continue to grow healthily for the country's sake. My own involvement for quantum science is on a less sexier topic of quantum and thus, it will have little attention. If there is any relationship to all these technological flurry is probably because of the theoretical underpinnings are not quite as settled as one would like to think. Also quantum advantage expectations of quantum computing relies very much on the progress of quantum algorithms whose fundamentals are yet to be fully understood. Lately, there are also speculations on how quantum computing might intersect with the field of artificial intelligence. I'm currently reading on the (basic) materials of both (sidetracking my own real mathematical interests).

Well, that much has changed. I'm still largely the same self and is on the way out with all the imperfections.

Alone Again and Extending the Life of a Laptop

This morning, I'm all alone at home. We have send back our youngest son back to college after spending a week at home for his semester break.

My third son, Izhar has started working at Heitech Padu Sdn Bhd. Today, he is reporting duty at Menara Heitech Village. We went to check out where this is last Saturday.

Perhaps later today, we will know where he will be stationed in (many branch offices). He had to decline a previous offer becaue Heitech offered a better pay and perhaps not so odd hours of working time (see here). My eldest seems to be happy with his work as a QC officer in a glass factory in Senawang but he has to work for 12 hours Monday to Saturday. A little problem for him is Friday prayers where the break time is pretty short. My second son is of course in JB.

My other half is doing her locum to help with the income. That leaves me alone with our cats.

Several days before, I could not get to use my laptop since its system files get corrupted. I was tweaking something before this because it was already causing problems before (to the point I had to uninstall my personal Mathematica software). Not sure if it is because of the tweaking or my cat had accidentally altered something while I was not in the room. I was fearing the worse particularly with all my work in there. Also, I can't afford to buy a new computer (barely surviving for this month). Luckily I had my third son helped me to back up my working files and reinstall Windows using a different hard disk which has bigger capacity.

Some hiccups after the reinstallation is that my working files now stored as an external hard disk (brought out from the old laptop) kept asking for a recovery key since it was locked by BitLocker. Again my third son came to the rescue and made some adjustments (tried to do it myself with advices online, but it requires more sophisticated adjustment).

So lets hope this laptop will last for a few more years. I'll be more careful this time.