Tradition To Continue

I'm writing this post mainly to prevent certain thoughts from being kept replaying in my mind in the coming days. Throughout my career, I have received a lot of criticisms and labels (including 'liar' in one case, which I remember to this day). I take some of these criticisms to help me improve but some (perhaps grown out of envy or ignorance) I totally dismiss them. One should always remember that opportunities for criticisms are available to all (the critics and the recipients of critics) and one can see plenty of these in social media. So when both sides are criticising each other, one has to appeal to higher level of judgment and this level is not obvious and may not be available for everyone to consider.

I do take note of the current development of quantum research in the country with great interest. It is good that many have become interested in the subject and such (positive) development should be welcomed. There will be competition of course (hopefully healthy) and even personal agendas in play for which once again their resolution needs to appeal for a higher level of judgment. To properly pursue such quantum research, one has to be authentic about it and preferably not reduced to merely labels as others are watching us internationally. The thing I want to address here is simply the dismissive attitude of some for the efforts that we have made in building up quantum research in my former university. In response, I posted the image below on FB.

This list can be found here as proof. Note that this is only my PhD students under my main supervision (does not include co-supervision). To include my M.Sc. students (as main supervisor), one can refer to the following post. For proof, one has to access my former university's Graduate School records. So, this may count for something, I think and in addition, some of my students continue to serve in my former university and universities elsewhere. Firthermore I have helped examine thesis of students of others. It is embarrassing to bring these all up but it helps refute some of the dismissive criticques mentioned earlier. I am aware that it is a modest contribution and perhaps not within the 'star-player' expectations of some administrators. Besides handling students, we have also engaged in many activities promoting quantum science & technology, most notably EQuaLS (Expository Quantum Lecture Series), which I have written about countless times in the past. It is a tradition that I'm proud to see that my younger colleagues have continued in recent years. Tradition is something that I have always emphasized to my students (and probably to my other colleagues as well) and it is something that we need to build on tirelessly. So with me now out of the academia, I certainly hope that the tradition in quantum research that we have built, will not fizzle out but instead will serve as a platform for my younger colleagues to build stronger research on. That is how I think progress should be made (without rebooting too much).

Coming to the national quantum strategies that have been announced in many places recently, I hope they will be ones that are inclusive of what we have done in the past and of course, efforts of others too. We have to break out of the silos that we have been dwelling in the past. At this point, some may retort and say why I have not done this in the past while I was in service. Well, we have tried with very little success with all the workshops, conferences and lecture series that we have organized and participated in. Perhaps due to my limited circle of influence, the influence never really caught on beyond our own group. At the time, I was called an 'event manager' instead and the things we do are said to be unlikely to have any impact. Now, with my younger colleagues, things are looking better with MyQI formed.  It is a good initiative with multiple institutions on board, involving the many traditional quantum researchers that are already there in the local ecosystem, and hence this initiative should be given due recognition.

Yesterday after Friday prayers, I was listening to this forum in Davos through a YouTube video. I thought it is worth listening to by the 'decision makers' circle; the forum includes the Singapore Minister for Digital Development and Information, Josephine Teo. Now Singapore has been pursuing quantum science & technology, even way before CQT was formed (see here). With more than two decades of history (read: tradition) and generous funding, it is now one of the internationally renowned quantum research centres in the world. On our part, it is only recently that the numbers have swelled but the funding remains relatively small. So, I figured that we need at least another decade for us to have a proper impact (internationally) and only if we get our acts right. As I was watching the forum during which Josephine Teo was speaking, my other half came in and asked me, what is quantum. I tried to explain the difference between classical and quantum science as plainly as possible to her, but digressed later into the ecosystem that we have, with all of its shortcomings. She has been reminding me that I have retired all this while, and I should focus on what would be my next 'life'. She, however, now understood why I have been working even after retirement (keeping our room messy with books and papers) given the importance of this work. But at some future moment, I will have to stop.

Weekend With Our Youngest

Last Friday, we picked up our youngest son from UiTM Jasin to simply spend the weekend with us. Earlier in the week, I found out that we have forgotten to top up his pocket money and he almost ran out of cash. We immediately transferred some money to him. Felt guilty about it.

Our weekend was pretty uneventful though, but my other half brought my sons to a wedding near Paroi (I stayed home, ontok-ontok). On Saturday night (after more than an hour of blackout), my eldest son treat us for dinner at our usual eatery place Sanee Hijrah. The food is quite good and it is relatively cheaper there. Other cheaper eateries are simply the 'mamak' restaurants. There is a rise in the number of hipster cafes and we only go there for special occasions. Eating at home remains the cheapest and eating out is just to break the monotonicity. Also, with my sons working (they tend to come back late during Maghrib or after Maghrib), and then we are simply tired to go out. My eldest often goes to work around 6.30am n the morning (during day shifts) and my other half often prepares breakfast around 5am in the morning. It is only on Sunday that she gets a break. At some point, I should revive my cooking skills though I have to say I tend to be slower in preparing meals (just like st everything else, I guess).

Yesterday after breakfast and Mydin shopping for our necessities and for our youngest son's needs, we send him back to UiTM Jasin. Luckily there was no traffic jam on our way there and back. We stopped at Ayer Keroh's RnR to get our son some lunch as a change. Normally, we will actually go to Merlimau for lunch but this time we wanted to save time. Note added: I met Dr. Wan Daud while we were filling up petrol for our car. We used to commute together to UPM from Seremban. He told me that he is now 79 but he looks steady though slimmer. I hope all is well with him.

On one's development side, lately I have been listening to talks by Prof. Jiang Xueqin. He is getting very popular especially when he has successfully predicted certain world events with him being able to extract core ideas and using game theory to look at possible outcomes. For a sampler of his talks, one can go to this link. I wanted to pass some of his talks to my family but some of his talks can get controversial, particularly when he touched upon secret societies. I can understand that he s only using these narratives as tools for his analysis. In the Muslim psyche however, no one is omniscient and omnipotent and one should not hold too tightly on opinions and thoughts from whatever analysis.

Hijri Birthday and The Trip to Melaka

Yesterday was my Hijri birthday and I'm 65 according to the Hijri calendar, two years older than my 'Gregorian' age. So what did I do yesterday?

Well, my kids have chipped in part of their income to realise the idea that I go through some check-up for my heart conditions. The idea started with my other half arranged for her sister to take the advantage of a package at Pantai Hospital for a heart echo test costing around four hundred ringgit. Then why not I do the same? Thus, our trip happened and we arrived around 9am in the morning. 

I was fasting then thinking there would be a blood test. As we discussed with the doctor (Dr. Baqlish), he enquired about my medical history and my family medical history and he suggested that I do angiogram CT scan instead. I looked at my other half then, she immediately agreed. Such test would cost a few thousand ringgit instead of few hundred ringgit. I was still fasting despite there will be no blood test and waited at the imaging diagnostic section. The first trial was unsuccessful because my heart was beating too fast. This is in part due to the slight pain sensation and the internal heating senssation when they injected in the dye. I have forgotten how it felt like and the sensation send my heart racing. Since the first imaging failed, they send me out to rest first and they gave me some medication to make my heart calm down. They did it twice, first, the medication taken orally when I was resting, and second, just before the second imaging takes place by injection. The imaging, I guess, went through.

We had to wait until after lunch before we get the results. Finally, the doctor call us to go to the imaging diagnostic unit again and see him there. He showed us the images and told us it was not aas clear as he wanted but it was enough to conclude some results. The one most concerning is that there is one blockage right at the main vein, in addition to many minor ones in the smaller veins. So there I was, not knowing how to react, but I was already thinking about stents. But the doctor immediately cancelled that thought as he pointed out that the blockage was at a junction of veins and if a procedure is carried out, it will be a complicated one. The cost to do such procedure at a prvate hospital would probably be almost twice that of my other half's procedure for CSF leak. Thus, the doctor was already having in mind, a referral letter to Institut Jantung Negara (IJN - National Heart Institute).

Well, that was my birthday present, knowing about my heart more than I used to before. I certainly hope my heart is in a 'better' place. The immediate action needed to be done, as the doctor remarked, is to continue with my plavix medication to ensure ease of blood flow. I will need to show this letter to the doctor in the university and get the doctor's support letter as I was told that a letter from a public hospital is needed for treatment in IJN. The rest? My thoughts are already clouded with many things in mind. 

As we made our way home, I joked with my son is maybe I should now start a podcast called Tengking Muslim (with reference to the famous podcast The Thinking Muslim). It is perhaps my cynical response to the Islamophobe sphere. The world does not seem to be evolving into a better place with talks of land-grabbing expansionism in place, treating people of not their colour or creed as vermins. I have seen how many posts that try to demonise Muslims to an extent that I would like to abandon the social media. The small part of me with whatever little time I have left, need to make small moves  Sometimes we joke about this (see this post), but on a serious note, one should not lose hope and have faith in the wisdom of Allah; the one piece of advice that I hope my children will learn.

Rest Of The Week One January 2026

Last Wednesday, we went to UPM Health Center to get my stock of medication as the ones I had is almost finished. Like before, the doctor that saw me this time is different from the previous one.

Even with the records available online, I had to explain my health problems to the doctor particularly about my back pain problems (and hence insisting to get Tramadol as the doctor wanted to give me a milder one). Told the doctor I had taken up both Gabapentin (for the nerves) and Tramadol the night before because I needed the pain relief. The doctor was surprised since these medication will make me extremely drowsy, but I told him that I take Tramadol only when necessary. Had my blood sample taken that day (four tubes!). The doctor asked if I could come next week but my other half had arranged an appointment at Pantai Hospital in Melaka for an echo heart test next week. There was a relatively cheaper package for this test and my sons offered to pay for the expenses. Thus, I replied that I could not come the week after due to this and will come back one month after to get the blood test results.

In the evening, my eldest gave us a dinner treat at the local Middle Eastern restaurant since my second son Ihsan is going back to JB the next day. Forgotten to take pics at the time since most of us were very hungry. Late afternoon the next day, Ihsan went back to JB as he will be having night-shift work for the week after.

Also on Wednesday, my younger colleague told me that our paper has appeared online. We knew that it was accepted sometime in July and was waiting for it to appear. The paper was based on the work of my former PhD student. It was a problem given to him earlier in his PhD studies before I retired. Parts of the work I had also presented during the SQST conference in December 2024 with generalizations (also was mentioned briefly in the paper). Despite the ad-hockery criticism during the conference (most quantum works have ad-hockery elements), the work has good potential to be explored further within this traditional quantization framework and there could be some interesting physical implications. 

On the whole, there is much t be learned about this problem and one should not be overly satisfied with the current achievement/paper published. In my opinion, we have gradually gone through the phases I have mentioned in my speech long time ago:

In my humble opinion, we have yet to establish ourselves within the last phase and we need to work harder (creating more intense research ecosystem) to achieve this. Exploring the work along this direction might just get us there.

The First Post of 2026

I was mostly resting in bed during the first few days of 2026. Thought I should now post something. My son from JB came back home on Sunday. Like always, we celebrate his cominng home by going out to eat outside in order for him to have a meal at the new eatery PnC Kitchen in Ikon, Seremban 2. Despite that I'm still in ontok-ontok mode, I thought I should be fair to all my kids so that each of them have at least one meal at this new place. The place is a bit pricey and it is always fully packed. In any case, my son had just transferred some cash to me and I was just returning him a treat. Here are some pics (as you can see, we had to sit outside).

Another educational post in my family WhatsApp group: an AI-generated video of John Mearsheimer's explaining Malaysia's decision to move currency and trading towards the gold standard, beginning in mid 2024. Thereafter, according to the video, several negotiations and counter-explanations were made revolving around arguments of others against this move. The video again has been removed (strangely) and I can't find any reliable information about the matter. If it is true, it is certainly a bold move to make our country less dependent on the US currency.

Another AI-generated video that I find interesting is "Emad Mostaque and the ideas from his book "The Last Economy"". The YouTube link (if it is not removed) is simply a plain audio clip which offers a (better) summary of Emad Mostaque's book "The Last Economy". I did not post this to my family group since I have already told them about Emad Mostaque's work before. The clip is over 1 hour 46 minutes offering a very good glimpse of what is inside the book, much better than the one I have given before (see this post). I saw that for the published version of my post in Majalah Sains, the editor actually had removed one added note that I wrote in the blog, about how to perceive 'harmonic flow' with respect to learning, which I thought was an interesting observation (but this is fine; it makes a smoother read). If I were to improve the post (or article), I would have added some diagrams (I will only describe them in words here and you can imagine how they look like). First to describe the first two flows (gradient and circular), one imagines a flat surface representing the phase space. Locally, one can then consider a radial (gradient) flow orthogonal to the (concentric) circular flow on the flat surface. The harmonic flow would then be added structures to this bland planar description i.e. by adding a height degree of freedom perpendicularly transverse to the surface. So one can add as many peaks and dips to the surface engineered at will where the circular flows will represent topographical contours and the radial flows will be flows ascending to a peak or descending to a dip. This will give an idea of what Mostaque meant by 'geometric engineering'. Of course these are all theoretical and the challenge is how to realise these given the compound civilizational variable of MIND. Mostaque did say in this podcast, that a technical paper will be written to detail out how these work and I'm looking forward to such paper.