Infrequent Reacts

I rarely want to say anything about something which I do not really know about. If I feel strongly about something that I do not quite know, I will probably play different scenarios in my head and evoke different responses. Imagine doing that every time something viral came up, it will be very tiring. I certainly do not want to live my life as such, making one's life revolving around others.

I consciously make the choice of only saying things, mostly when it greatly affects my own personal life. For instance, the last two weeks I get to know some remarks made indirectly about some personal choices I have made on my research. One is from abroad, which is on our choice of picking up topics that are not quite in the mainstream of quantum information, and as such is probably deemed useless to many in the field. Such choice is made because our group is pretty isolated and can't be as fast paced like other more active groups. Until our group grows bigger and more focused, it is difficult to pick a niche that is more popular, without good support. The next thing I got to know is about our new staff intake. The comment there is to select one doing theory, who is not near to my type of research (my guess is mathematical physics). I guess, I can pretty much conclude that my type of work is not really welcomed here. Same old story, the story of my life. Anyway, it is good then that I will be leaving, so that the power brokers can do whatever they wish and gear the local community to their own design.

Moving to a larger scale, the social media has been rife with viral posts about religious personalities making comments about science. Usually, I tend to ignore such posts, reading them only for the sake of awareness of what is going on. My past experience finding science-religion intersections with religious figures, has not been that pleasant, to the point that I concluded it is more meaningful to do our work separately. The viral event that appeared last week, somehow got my attention a little bit more. I decided to listen to the religious preacher (pretty popular) on what he said. After listening for a while, I had to stop because I can't stomach the errors he made and the way he is trying to deceive the audience. I didn't hear or get to the point where he said scientists lie (claimed by some responses). The religious preacher has pretty much decided that scientists are wrong. With respect to the false impression that he is building, that there is dissonance between what is mentioned in the Qur'an and what scientists have to say, one has to clearly differentiate between what is really in the Qur'an and the way he thinks he understood some verses. His challenge to the scientists to investigate what is meant by the Qur'anic verses rings hollow, given that he himself has not quite done this job itself. There are Muslim scientists who have studied the problems he is alluding to, both in the past and at present (see Bruno Guiderdoni, for instance), if he cares to read a little more. Anyway, I feel sorry for those who stood up and defended the religious preacher, without properly understanding the claims on science that he had made. As far as I am concerned, I would prefer to listen to other preachers who are more scholarly in behaviour.

In the issue of geocentric universe versus heliocentric universe, let me recall an experience I had. There was once a student from the Indian subcontinent, who approached me to seek supervision for PhD studies. I asked him what is his interest and he blurted out that he is certain he can prove that the Earth is the centre of the universe. My alarm bells rang off. Not to cut off his enthusiasm, I asked him what is his latest reading on this matter but he seems to be evading to answer this directly but my own perception then is that he only knows Newtonian physics. When I told this story to the late Prof. Twareque, I was allowing the possibility that the student might know that there are theories about cosmic voids of which we (our local galaxy) are probably situated in, and that special situation may give us the observation of an accelerating universe. Prof. Twareque then replied saying that I was giving too much credit to the student. To the student, I redirected the student to other researchers who may have interest on history of science (say on geocentric versus heliocentric debates) or on philosophy and metaphysics, so that he could probably learn better on these, since my interest then was not on those.

So for my relativity class yesterday, I remembered I had the following text in my notes.

I thought of highlighting the issue of geocentric universe versus heliocentric universe. However I did not manage to reach to this point but only taught about Galilean relativity. However I did say to the students, the need for their knowledge to expand, to generalize the knowledge that we had before (in this case it is Newtonian physics). I touched a bit about misconceptions that can arise if the knowledge that one has is limited (say of high school physics or even everyday experience, which are really special cases). I referred to the viral event of the comments on science from the religious preacher (not named) and hope that they get some lessons from the matter.

On yesterday viral news .... aren't people tired of the matter? The ministry and the relevant institution know about it and they are the ones who can act (the rest of us mostly blabber). With Ramadhan coming in a few days, I think we could use some peace and quiet.

A Trip to Jasin

Yesterday we made a trip to Jasin, Melaka to send our youngest son to UiTM there. We had never been to Jasin and we did not know how long it will take. I had to google up whether it has a toll exit and luckily there is. We began our trip after having breakfast around 10.30-ish and reached there before noon. The university was actually a short drive away from the toll. It seems pretty remote, passing through oil palm plantation (we did not pass through any town then).

At the campus, we were stopped near the gate for a check of my son's RTK test (negative) and then we proceeded to near some centre to drop off our son for registration at a centre (seems where the shops are) and drove to park nearby the college to unload his things. He got a room on the second floor (can't remember the name of the block). A slight problem with the room then, is the door can't be locked. On reporting the matter to the facilitators, he was asked to lodge a complaint online. I hope this could be resolved soon since this is a matter of security of the belongings in the room. 

After loading off his things, we asked the facilitators if we can bring him out for lunch and we were told that he only needs to come back before 11pm. We weren't sure then, where to get our lunch. On googling, it seems the closest town to UiTM Jasin is Merlimau. On the way there, we actually took a wrong turn and went through a narrow road (fits only one one car) nearby the oil palm plantation - pretty scary. On reaching the town, we had our lunch at McDonalds there.

After lunch, we stopped by at a grocery store, to get him a broom and dust pan for him to tidy up his place. Finally, we dropped him at the college and then returned home. The journey home was longer due to the heavy traffic all the way to Seremban.

In the evening, we started to miss him already. He has been stuck at home for almost two years and missed out an opportunity of going to the UiTM last year (which is what he wants). His SPM was actually delayed from November/December 2020 to late February 2021 due to Covid-19. In a way, this has affected his education but we were pleased that he got the UiTM Jasin offer earlier this year. I hope he will rejuvenate his interest in his studies and do well there. Here are some photos of his room (after tidying up) and his first meal (without us) there.

May Allah ease his way through his studies there.

Marching Into The Class

This semester I was given back Special Relativity & Classical Field Theory course to teach. I already had notes for this, but I guess I could improve this further, particularly the classical field theory. When I took the classical field theory course in University of Adelaide, I learned even the retarded and advanced Green's function for electromagnetic waves. However, since this is a combined course with special relativity (which was a 2 credit course in Adelaide), perhaps it is unfair to go too deep into classical field theory. I contemplated also whether one should go for some more modern materials, like group theoretical aspects or even supersymmetry as found in Schwarz & Schwarz's book. But these are rather optional topics.

There is another course that I should be teaching (two courses per academic staff not holding any admin post). Initially, I thought it was the second course of quantum mechanics (the combination I had two semesters ago). However, I was given the postgraduate seminar course(s) to handle. This, indeed, was a surprise. It will be a new experience for me and the type of assessment is pretty much subjective (so had to learn all these rubric stuffs). My own concern for this course is not too much the assessment but what they are getting out of it. I thought I should make the students learn about seminar as a community activity (traditions, contributing back to the community) and how I think seminar should be conducted. The latter, in particular, is important since many talks I've seen from students are prepared in a way as a report to be read linearly, with references right at the end. For me, this should be stopped. It should be prepared with instant and nonlinear reading in mind since the audience do not have the luxury of flipping over the slides. For me, references should be written as footnotes on the very same slide where they are cited (instantaneously the audience know what the reference is).

So the week that has passed was the first week of teaching (it was also a convocation week). I have opted to teach Special Relativity fully face-to-face because to me, it does not make too much sense to have partly online and partly face-to-face. So, we had the first lecture on the Wednesday morning. In the afternoon, one of the students who attended contacted me and told me that she had Covid-19 (did not know at first as she thought what she had was normal and she was fasting). First, I was wondering what one should do but in any case, I thought it is best that the department should know. When I reported it to the department, I was not hoping for anything (like making the class online) but I intend to carry on with the face-to-face class as I remembered the current SOP for closed contact is that there is no need for quarantine if there are no symptoms. The department's response was that I should try to do hybrid teaching, having both face-to-face and online mode simultaneously. Well, that is going to be a challenge since I could not even get the room's projector in the first class and did the teaching using the white board. However, I accepted the challenge and thought of using the theory group's portable projector. So the next morning, did try that and got it to work (see pic below) but the signal was rather unstable. Also I had to used my own broadband wi-fi as the wi-fi in the room was too weak. Finally asked for help from the Faculty's staff just to get the room's projector to work. Finally, we did get the hybrid class going.

For the graduate classes, we were given the permission to do them online. So, I did the briefing for the Graduate Seminar class on the Wednesday afternoon. The only problem with this class, there are five different subject codes (corresponding to different stages of the graduate's study), all combined into a single Wednesday afternoon class, and there is no central listing of the registered students. So had to announce the briefing through word of mouth. Even as I try to finalise the schedule for the students' presentation yesterday, there were still new additions to the class. Hopefully, I will get all the students by this week, so that the presentation schedule can be finalised soon. Below is a pic of the briefing.

Two other interesting things happened last week. First, the announcement of the 2022 Abel Prize on Wednesday evening. It was awarded to Dennis Sullivan. I was aware of his work on topology (various aspects) but did not know the details. Posted this in the institute's WhatsApp group. There seems to be little excitement on the news in the Malaysian scene, perhaps because no one is really working in this area here. Was wondering whether I should learn part of his work just to get people excited. The other thing was INSPEM's event of holding an online conversation with Dr. Aid Fawzal of the Fawzal number fame. I remembered reading about him in the social media. I do not know much about his work but it seems to be in computational fluid dynamics. He was pretty humble in the conversation, mentioning he had academic difficulties (due to dyslexia) in the beginning but he worked his way around it and managed to grab international attention. Below are some pics of the event.

Pain In Comparison

In the past, I have been complaining about my back pain and at times took leave to get my back rested (which I can't do in office). I sometimes wonder if people doubted about my predicament and thought I'm faking it. To a certain extent, I doubted myself too; was it because my pain threshold is so low. This doubt was also encouraged by the specialists that I have gone to, also downplayed my pain - showed me x-rays of severe scoliosis (mine was slight) and lumbar disk with visible protrusion onto the nerves (my MRI showed dark lumbar disk with slight protrusion). So these days, I complained less, only doing so with my other half. Presently I have constant pain at the right hip, have slight difficulty of moving, numbness in the right leg and at times with throbbing pain, and occasionally pain in my ankle. So I take this as part of the progression of the back pain as I'm growing older. Did try to do my own exercises on and off, avoiding going to physiotherapists or chiropractors since they can become expensive. When I lie down, I often twist my body, hoping for some relief.

Recently I had to go to the dentist for root canal treatment, to save one of my tooth. It got cancelled twice; the first time is because that I was on the blood-thinning medication and I had to stop taking it at least three days earlier before the treatment. Second time, it was because of the home quarantine order. Last Saturday, I got to go to the dentist but he found out that I had a tooth stump in my gums, causing slight swelling and pus. He had to take that stump out, essentially carving my gum to pull out the stump. Despite the local anaesthetics, could still feel the pain as it was pulled out and I was in tears and was sweating withstanding the pain. I had my gum stitched up so that my gum does not bleed too much (due to the blood thinning medication). I guess, everyone can relate to pain associated with tooth extraction and know how painful this can get and the subsequent post-extraction pain. I had then the thought of comparing the pain from this dental treatment with the pain from my back. The pain while the tooth stump was being pulled out is perhaps of higher degree but not that it was incomparable to my back pain. In fact, the post dental treatment pain is really comparable with my back pain if not slightly less. So there you go, I supposed my pain threshold is quite high in a way. So, if I say, I have back pain, I hope those who doubted me before, can imagine the same pain after the tooth is being pulled out. In a way, I got used to it though some bad episodes can send me into a fever.

Just minutes ago, I had my teeth/gum x-rayed for possibly another stump embedded in the gum. Mentally preparing myself for another tooth extraction.

Random But Conscious March

Last week, I spent working in office for the whole week, hoping to prove I have no qualms in doing so and am not hell-bent to work from home as previously announced possible. I was told that there were some changes, not sure triggered by what, that academics can punch in once from outside the campus and once inside the campus. Perhaps this flexibility works for many, particularly to those who lives nearby. For me, living in Seremban, 47 km from the university, if I go to the campus, I will just stay there until the office hours end. To me, it doesn't matter any more, I will sacrifice my time for travelling to work on average, one and a half hour each day (if no traffic problems). Not to mention that the drive is tiring (giving my back a beating) and all the risks given that there is a significant proportion of drivers who do not practice safe driving. More importantly, I do not like to be considered as a habitual complainer and a problem maker. I am committed to do work even if the kind of work I do goes unappreciated; I don't work to be visible to be doing work (which seems to be the norm). If I want to be at home (working or not), I will take leave as I will do this coming Monday, just to avoid the heavy traffic during the convocation.

On the topic of visibility, I have stopped counting days on the social media. The purpose of the count is mainly personal and I still do it within my small notebook. I do not want to be seen as attention-beggar, making these announcements. I mainly post things that I felt that there will be benefits for others with the view of myself being an educator. I don't aim to be a social influencer or popularity-chaser. The content of my posts are usually what preoccupies my mind (except links that I find interesting) without the artificiality of trying to find something interesting to say (conscious of this). On keeping links and information, I have started doing my own Random Notes stored electronically. If I find some of these particularly interesting, I will share them on the social media.

Lately, me shying away from people, some may have thought I have given up. I certainly have not but I tend to be more conscious of my deeds and I am selective of what I do, not to be caught in the frenzy of a rat race. On things that I have been told off as doing not as good, I do shy away from them but not in the sense of being irresponsible, rather focusing more on what one can do better. Over the years, I have seen a lot of unnecessary things to do being heaped upon us in the name of continual improvement. Sometimes in the craziness of trying to change, one forgets the tradition one intends to build, usually comes over slow but rooting changes. Some has even told me that I could not fit in the current work environment, to which I feel I'm sorry they feel that way. I am not sure what kind of negative imageries that are being propelled somewhere about me (some of which is very damaging), but I have essentially become numbed to these. For me, I am now preparing myself for the post-retirement phase. I do hope to get to play a minor role in a new work environment. I do hope to get a paid job because I still need to pay my bills and support my children, two of whom are continuing their tertiary education.

My youngest will soon be going to UiTM in Jasin, to do his diploma study very soon. To prepare him for this, just bought a new laptop last Friday night. I pray that he will do well.

Back to Office on Pi Day

Today is Pi Day and is celebrated as the International Day of Mathematics. After a week at home, I am back in office. The Monday had me working from home (WFH), as I thought I could. The Tuesday, I was on leave for a dental appointment (I was advised to go for a root canal treatment involving minor surgery - could not do it there and then because I was on blood-thinning medication, plavix). On early Wednesday morning, we received the message from my son at the testing lab that my other half had her PCR test positive, as mentioned in the previous post. Worried, I thought that I should stay at home (WFH) and get all of us in the house, PCR-tested since we are all exposed and are classed as close contacts. However, I received conflicting procedures/terms on what should be done as I shall explain below. We did go for the PCR test and by 4am the next morning (Thursday), we received news from our son, that our results are negative (apart from my other half). Did we do our part as responsible citizens - yes, we think so, since we are helping to contain the spread . Did I do it to avoid coming to office? I would say no, even if some others might think otherwise.

Let me rewind back to a few weeks earlier. When our vice-chancellor announced that academics can do remote working or work from home (WFH) for two days out of a week in his annual speech on Friday, February 11, I was genuinely surprised. This is due to the usual low trust relations between administrators and government officers in general. There were no conditions mentioned in the speech and I tried to check with other colleagues to confirm that this is true. So on Wednesday last week, when I informed the office about me being a close contact and I wanted to do the PCR test, I was told that I can't apply for WFH. Instead, I was forwarded this new procedure from MoH by the officer (see pic below).

The above got me puzzled and thus I forwarded the document that my other half was tested positive, just to show that I was not bluffing. I also applied for leave for the next two days (Thursday & Friday), since I do not want to cause any complications admin-wise. I was also asked to update my MySejahtera and forward the snapshot to the office. I was already informed that there is often a one-day delay of the MySejahtera update even for those who are Covid-19 positive and for the close contacts, it can even be a further another day delay. My other half got her status updated on the Thursday around noon. Mine was only updated an hour after (see below).

I immediately send this to my boss. There is still the question of whether I should be quarantined or not. It was an hour later that I realised that I had this Home Surveillance Order (after my eldest told me he got the HSO message and he was without any symptoms, unlike me), which means we are home quarantined for the next two days (until Saturday).

I send this to my boss despite that I had already applied for leave the next two days. 

On WFH, last Friday, my colleagues informed me that the Faculty had imposed conditions on those who are eligible for WFH i.e. the individual need to achieve a good mark for their annual assessment and has a journal article as a corresponding author. I personally find this somewhat strange. Essentially, the individual who are not eligible for WFH are actually penalised twice: one for not achieving the KPI and hence less assessment marks, one for the non-eligibility for WFH, I have raised such a matter in one meeting some time ago but for a different context and perhaps have been labelled as the 'aggressive' for doing so. As once-an-administrator, I understand that there is a need to push for staff to work for their KPIs (I expect usually through positive motivation/encouragement and better opportunities). Such action may have the opposite effect, demotivating those affected while those who can game their KPIs get rewarded. Perhaps the matter has been long discussed by the administrators and all pros and cons have been considered. For me, I am less concerned about the matter since I am about to retire it, but for those who have many more years in service, they will be greatly affected. In any case, I still try to work to achieve some KPIs but I have no intent to game them as if these are all that matters. So, today I come to work (yes, I'm not playing truant) but with the red high-risk category from the university website. They should try to update this website as it still asks us of our 14-day history (could have been shortened). Otherwise I will be coming to work with this high-risk category this week and the next.

Finally, let's just enjoy Pi Day and on things that we are very passionate about (and not bothered by the things we are enslaved by). I hope to attend (via FB live) the launching of the International Day of Mathematics by INSPEM later this afternoon with a talk by Emeritus Prof. Dr. Shaharir.

Counting Days and Marching In

Since end of January, I have started to count the number of days to my official retirement. A younger colleague made the remark that normally this is done when one has several days left (as opposed to few hundred days, I guess). I guess what I wanted to do is to remind myself that time is running out and there are plenty on my mind that I wanted to finish (or start) before I retire. Because of this limited time, I have started to pick and choose on what I should do in this period and my apologies if I have declined some requests of certain tasks (I hope they get better people to do them). In addition to sharing the number of days left, I have also shared what preoccupies my mind for the day, rather randomly. Perhaps it is of interest to someone; I hope it is not deemed as seeking popularity.

I have paused my blogging for weeks now because I had many tasks to complete: reading the draft of FYP dissertations of my own students (four of them), setting up final exam questions for my two subjects (two different sets, bilingual with solutions), marking the second test, collecting marks for the various assignments (marked by my graduate student as teaching assistant), finishing whatever (recorded) lectures that I can, reading drafts of PhD thesis, papers of my postgraduate students, examining thesis of FYP students of others and marking the final exam. Juggling through all these, sometimes I need to shelve one duty, prioritising another to allow for more focus. Sometime I get frustrated over some of these; for instance, I had to spent more time than I should to read (some badly written)  drafts of the undergraduate theses, when I am supposed to rush my final exam questions. I did notice that they did some of the corrections that I have asked them to do but just do not have the time to recheck. I have always advised my FYP students to write their thesis with their colleagues in mind as the audience/readers since usually the readers of their thesis will be future students (not us researchers). So if they write as if it is a research paper, its value would be diminished.

For the final exam questions, we had to make some judgment calls about what is to be included despite we had less number of weeks to go through the course contents due to the extraordinary break due to the floods and only later we were asked to replace the lectures (no additional weeks were given despite the break - this is to ensure that the Chinese New Year holidays do not go into the exam period. One somebody told me that I have mellowed over the difficulty of exam questions over the years. Part of these mellowing is due to better experience of what should be tested. The other (major) part is realizing sometimes we are making our ego interfere with the real purpose of examining the students (showing how clever we can put up the questions). I remember once, a mature student (a teacher, who was also the wife of a college principal) complained how little marks she got did not reflect her efforts and her understanding of quantum mechanics (the subject I was teaching). Thereafter, I thought carefully about what should goes into the questions balancing conceptual and mathematical skills. Students actually get themselves more frequently wrong for the conceptual parts more than the mathematical parts. For the mathematical questions, however, most of the time they are able to answer (parts of) them, otherwise they can't do them at all. When our exam went online, getting a balanced set of questions is even tougher. Some have the tendency of designing questions that the students have not seen or have not experienced solving them. However, I maintained the simpler idea that one should be examining materials that they have learned and know generally what the techniques are. This, perhaps, made my exams a little bit more predictable than usual but this does not mean they are easy or straightforward, especially for the students who have not studied.

After struggling with finishing the lectures, it was time for me to mark the final exams. It took me a while to get started (with many other things in mind) since I had to sort some matters of the marking scheme of my shared course. My other half had told me that she had to go this conference cum annual general meeting in Kuantan on February 25. She wanted all of us to go along with her as part of our family holiday while she attended the talks and meeting at selected times. I wanted to get my marking done before the trip but it was just too much for me - both of my classes hit the maximum number of students (40). So brought along my work and did it partly there. Here are some pics from the trip.

We came back on the Sunday, February 27 and once we reached home, we made a small belated celebration of my youngest son's birthday.

Thereafter, I continued with my marking and was able to get all done by the deadline. Even after submitting the marks online, there were things to do, which I sought help from my younger colleague. Besides these teaching matters, I had other things to do, some of which, I just had to decline. In my mind, I need to focus more on those things which matters most.

Fast forward to March, something unexpected happened. The omicron wave was already hitting our country. As a doctor, my other half had to see many patients, some of which are not very honest with their health status. By last Friday, she was already not feeling well. She took the RTK test on Saturday and it showed negative, I also took the RTK test on Monday as I wasn't feeling that good and I had a dental appointment on Tuesday. So I wanted to be sure, I was infected and the test comes out negative (see pic below)

My other half's condition, however, was worsening and she had a bad fever and thus on late Tuesday afternoon, she took the PCR test as this is more accurate. My second eldest son who was working at the testing lab, got the results earlier before the formal report and messaged his mum that the test turned out to be positive. I was about to go to work that morning and I was unsure what I should do next. My son advised that I should also take the PCR test along with my other sons in the house. So, we did just that today and the results should be out early next morning. I was told that MySejahtera will not change our status until the next day (for Covid-positive patients) and the day after for close contacts. There was also a slight confusion on what I should do with respect to work and I was given the following info from the Ministry of Health by my boss.

Whatever the results tomorrow, I may need to take leave to be with my other half. We are trying out all possible traditional and popular remedies to reduce the symptoms. May Allah grant us speedy relief.

Multifarious Matters

We are entering the second half of February. Despite the Chinese New Year break, the bulk of heaped duties has not reduced and we have not really got a proper break in the sense that our minds are always occupied with the worry of unfinished tasks. At the end of the last week, I had to rush my reading of the drafts of dissertations of my FYP students. Most of them required careful reading and major improvements but some are pretty good, showing they have done a lot of independent work. I do wish those who felt the urge to do theoretical physics will come prepared with mathematical abilities and has the inquisitiveness of where a particular equation comes from. Also, they should write for their peers as the audience in mind, and not make their writings similar to the papers (it will defeat the purpose; readers might as well as read the original papers). 

After the FYP dissertations, then came the exams. Had many replacement recorded lectures to do, budging even into the exam week. Certainly this semester was a challenging semester and regretted of not having to do the lectures during extraordinary 'flood' break (as instructed). The editing of the FYP dissertations also interfered with my process of replacing the lectures (I could have used these hours to do the replacement lectures). The other challenge is that I have not been in my best physical conditions as my back pain worsened. Since end of last week, it has been very bad. These days I have difficulty walking a substantial distance without feeling pain. Driving too can cause a lot of tension in my legs. In a bad spell, I had to lie down whenever I can, to ease the pain.

A few days ago, I got a visit from a staff who felt that he/she was being victimised. Sat down and heard the person's side of the story. Matters like this can be demoralizing. I got to tell my own stories from the past too that got me agitated as well. One of the things I have learned in management is not to take sides but listen to both parties and try to weigh things out. Some things can go very toxic and that is why in my humble opinion, those who appeared to be vengeful with tendencies of taking advantage of others, should not take up a leadership position (if the person has not shown any changes). I remembered handling a case of absenteeism where the person involved thinks he/she was being victimized. I was accused of being an iron fist administrator (really... ? Some others thought I was too soft). The matter even went up to the higher authorities (putting me in bad light) because the person had 'friends'. I tried to reason that others were taking up responsibilities that the person had avoided and we (management) tried to offer solutions. Of course, the damage has been done and things went sour. Now, I'm happy to leave these all behind. Now I'm on the receiving end and I hope to bear whatever I will be put up against, until I retire (hopefully peacefully).

Beyond my personal life, I saw the social media flared up with controversies. I read them only to take lessons from. For me, I am more concerned about my own salvation, to be drawn into any of these. I do, of course, have my own opinions but I have no wish to 'join the crowd'. On the pandemic, new daily cases started to soar beyond 20,000 since the last several days (updates can be found here). This new surge is said to be due to the Omicron wave; it is said to be less severe but the worry of the health services being overwhelmed is still there. My own son who is part of the teams that do the testing had their leaves frozen. The testing team are also open to risks of infection and quite a few times that his colleagues was found to be Covid-positive. So far he has been lucky (tested negative).

On a better note, the renovation of my house is now paused momentarily despite the gate and balcony are not finished. The past and present weeks have been peaceful. We have also let our our cats out from their cages (so that during the renovation, they will not run off). Here are some of their pics.

Here's Lofa climbing up the curtains of my son's room:

February Has Arrived and the Renovation

February has arrived but nothing seems to be improving much. Whatever I wanted to do for the new year has been stalled again and again. In a way, it is a difficult period that I was not expecting.

The last weekend had me focusing on my marking of the second test of my two subjects. Been postponing these markings due to the earlier rush for the final exam questions. Strained my back in finishing them and finally was able to submit the marks online on time. It was thereafter, that I could focus on reading the thesis of my PhD students, who wanted to submit real soon. Then, come this week, my FYP students are due to submit their dissertations by the end of this week, which means that I will have to check their drafts too.

The renovation at my home has not finished, but it is in the final phase. They are now doing the front porch and the balcony (attached to our room) now. Most of our rooms are now ready to be occupied. Our main room was the last to be ready, with the washroom/shower just ready yesterday. Here are the pics from the last three days from the balcony of the main room (our room).

Today, they are tiling up the balcony of our room and the front porch.

The final piece of our shower/wash room is its door and we are able to use it now.

Besides office work, there are plenty of things to do at the house. We have unpacked most of our things to fill up our fitted-in wardrobe. Most of my books are now in the fitted cupboard (seven doors altogether) in the hall upstairs.

It's already quite full and I have not touched the stack of papers in my collection, now located at the balcony to one of my son's room. Not sure what to do with them.

I'm imagining putting them in a little store that we have at the balcony at our room (hopefully, my other half will not have other plans for it).

So our house is going to look very different from the outside.

I hope all the spending is worth it and the whole family will be happy with it. Me, I just want my life back to normalcy. As I have said, I have been struggling with many matters including my worsening back pain. I want this renovation to end soon.

Remembering Prof. Twareque Ali

FB has reminded me yesterday of the passing of Prof. S. Twareque Ali on the 25 January 2016. While sad, the memory of Prof. Twareque reminds me the need to keep pushing for the work on mathematical physics. It is quite easy to get disheartened nowadays with all the criticisms and non-ideal situations. Once I described the problems that I was facing and then he would asked, what am I going to do about it, signalling the advice for self-determination and activism. I will always remember that.

Before EQuaLS, I only knew Prof. Twareque by name. The earliest work of Prof. Twareque that I was aware of, is his work with Eduard Prugovecki. It is perhaps accidental that I knew of their work. After my B.Sc. degree, I was primarily interested in theories unifying quantum mechanics and general relativity and was scouting around for ideas and books. My late eldest brother had been buying/ordering books from a local book distributor in Kuala Lumpur and if my memory has not failed me, it was there I saw this book by Prugovecki on Stochastic Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Space-Time and I bought it. It was probably one of the earliest (mathematical physics) book that I have. It was only years later when I was doing my PhD on quantization that I found this paper of Twareque and Prugovecki on systems of imprimitivity (a topic that I needed to learn for Isham's canonical group quantization and Mackey's induced representation theory).

Fast forward a couple of years ahead, I began organizing Expository Quantum Lecture Series (EQuaLS) at the Institute for Mathematical Research (INSPEM). At the time, I was 'new' to INSPEM, since our Theoretical Studies Laboratory (TSL) at Institute of Advanced Technologies (ITMA) (now rebranded as Institute of Nanoscience & Nanotechnology), was asked to merge with INSPEM. At TSL, I have already started a lecture series and I thought I should rebrand it to EQuaLS (having lost TSL). So for the premiering EQuaLS event, I had to think of who to invite. Prof. Twareque Ali was on the top of my list since I wanted to get someone well-known on quantization. At the time, he had wrote this review with Miroslav Englis (see here for arXiv version). I, then, wrote to him and almost immediately got a positive reply and even mentioned my torus paper in PRD in his reply. So EQuaLS1 took off with him giving five lectures. At the end of the event, he came and hugged me emotionally and said something like I have started off something good. He has indeed started many internationally renowned events including the twin event of Group-Theoretic Methods in Theoretical Physics and Quantum Theory & Symmetries, both of which I had the opportunity to attend with his help. Therafter, he came to almost all EQuaLS event (apart from EQuaLS3, EQuaLS4 and EQuaLS7). EQuaLS 8 was the last event he was with us and on the morning before his flight heading home, we received the shocking news that he had passed away. I could not describe how I felt those few days (his body was at Serdang Hospital for a post-mortem). His funeral prayers was conducted at the UPM mosque after Friday prayers.

Prof. Twareque Ali has always said to me that he was fond in coming to Malaysia, stating that the country is a 'hidden treasure'. He has also said that he wished that there would be an institute for mathematical physics in Malaysia. At some point, I was hoping that INSPEM could be a vehicle to realise such idea and had wished he will be around to see it. Alas, things have not quite turned that way and with him not around, the possibility is even more remote. The night before his passing, we were at a restaurant in Seremban talking about research that I wished we could have done together. I mentioned about relatively new results of Gromov's non-squeezing theorem and Spekkens' toy epistemic theory and possible relation with quantization (hinting possible connections with his work with Prugovecki). He had asked me to write this up and perhaps seek international support for this (e.g. CRM). He was noticeably quiet that night and it did not occur to me that that was my last conversation with him. I regretted of not being able to initiate this plan earlier. I am still pursuing indirectly this direction with my students and hope one day, we will be able to discover something worthwhile. Below is the picture of my last conversation with Prof. Twareque. May Allah forgive him and accept his good deeds and grant him Jannah.

Work Corner and Self-Learning Modules

It has not yet been another week, but I thought I just want to write something for now. Just reached home from office (around 6pm) and this is after logging out just a few minutes past 5pm (the end of office hours). These days I tend to limit myself (if possible) in the office in just the hours needed. In the past, I used to work long hours when I am still involved in administration. Those days are over (thankfully) and I'm looking forward to my retirement. Some thought I am giving up my scientific pursuit and some even say I am no longer active scientifically. Not sure where they got the idea. Just this afternoon, I had a meeting with my PhD student. Perhaps what I want to do now and in the future will not quite fit what the university wants. In fact, I am looking forward to do things that are essentially worthless with respect to the usual KPIs of the university, but will be very valuable for me scientifically. Indeed now I feel more comfortable doing work at home. Had wished that the idea of working from home to be continued after the previous stretch of MCO but I guess it is too early for us to adopt such a paradigm. While my home is still under renovations, I have got my own sweet corner for me to work in my room (I guess, for the rest of my life) - see pic below.

The table was set a bit high and I could not find an office chair that will reach that height. Instead I had to get a stool (with a small back rest). It reminds me of working at a lab bench.

We have reached our final week of lectures but I have plenty of topics to cover for both subjects. I guess I will have to do some recorded lectures for those topics. Yesterday and today, managed to put out self-learning modules for the two subjects, where the students get to review some related papers in a group (each will have to mention what are their contributions) and relate them to materials covered in the lectures. I was supposed to give these some time near the mid-semester break (before or after) but time was not on my side to do so. What are they reviewing? They are listed below:

Statistical Mechanics:

1) Ralph Baierlein, “The Elusive Chemical Potential”, Amer. J. Phys. 69 (2001) 423-434.

2) Hajime Inaba, “The Development of Ensemble Theory – A New Glimpse at the History of Statistical Mechanics”, Eur. Phs. J. H 40 (2015) 489-426.

3) S.H. Mannaerts, “Extensive Quantities in Thermodynamics”, Eur. J. Phys. 35 (2014) 035017.

4) Zijun Yan, “General Thermal Wavelengths and Its Applications”, Eur. J. Phys. 21 (2000) 625-631.

5) Christon Krimizis-Tsatsoulis, “Trouton’s Rule Mysteries: An Attempt to a Better Understanding”, J. Chem. Thermodynamics 152 (2021) 106256.

6) K. Schoenhammer & V. Meden, “Fermion-Boson Transmutation and Comparison of Statistical Ensembles in One Dimension”, Amer. J. Phys. 64 (1996) 1168-1176.

7) Robert S. Knox & William W. Parson, “Entropy Production and the Second Law in Photosynthesis”, Biochimica et Biophysica Acta 1767 (2007)1189-1193.

8) Ayed Alsharafat & Noureddine Chair, “Factorization of the Bosonic Partition Function”, Phys. Lett. A 381 (2017) 1118-1122.

9) U. Klein, “The Statistical Origins of Quantum Mechanics”, Phys. Res. International 2010 (2010) 808424.

10) W.J. Mullin & J.P. Fernandez, “Bose-Einstein Condensation, Fluctuations and Recurrence Relations in Statistical Mechanics”, Amer. J. Phys. 71 (2003) 661-669.

11) Robert E. Kelly, “Thermodynamics of Blackbody Radiation”, Amer. J. Phys. 49 (1981) 714-719.

12) P. Justice, E. Marshman & C. Singh, “Student Understanding of Fermi Energy, the Fermi-Dirac Distribution and Total Electronic Energy of a Free Electron Gas”, Eur. J. Phys. 41 (2020) 015704.

Mathematical Methods in Physics:

1) S.F. Duki, T.P. Doerr & Y-K. Yu, “Improving Series Convergence: The Simple Pendulum and Beyond”, Eur. J. Phys. 39 (2018) 065802.

2) Edward Levy, “A Matrix Exponential Approach to Radioactive Decay Equations”, Amer. J. Phys. 86 (2018) 909-913.

3) R.S. Mackay, “Use of Stokes’ Theorem for Plasma Confinement”, Phil. Tran. R. Soc. A 378 (2020) 20190519.

4) A. Bostan & P. Dumas, “Wronskians and Linear Independence”, Amer. Math. Monthly 117 (2010) 722-727.

5) T.R. Cameron, “The Determinant From Signed Volume to the Laplace Expansion”, Amer. Math. Monthly 126 (2019) 437-447.

6) M.E. Luna-Elizarraras, M. Shapiro, D.C. Struppa & A. Varac, “Bicomplex Numbers and Their Elementary Functions”, CUBO Math. J. 14 (2012) 61-80.

7) J. Pujol, “Hamilton, Rodrigues, Gauss, Quaternions and Rotations: A Historical Reassessment”, Comm. Math. Analysis 13 (2012) 1-14.

8) M. Hamada, “The Minimum Number of Rotations About Two Axes for Constructing an Arbitrarily Fixed Rotation”, Roy. Soc. Open Sci. 1 (2014) 140145.

9) A. Galantai & Cs. J. Hegedus, “Jordan’s Principal Angles in Complex Vector Spaces”, Numer. Lin. Alg. Appl. 13 (2006) 589-598.

10) I.E. Leonard, “The Matrix Exponential”, SIAM Rev. 38 (1996) 507-512.

11) D.V. Redzic, “The Operator Ñ in Orthogonal Curvilinear Coordinates”, Eur. J. Phys. 22 (2001) 595-599.

12) G. Panou & R. Korakitis, “Analytical and Numerical Methods of Converting Cartesian to Ellipsoidal Coordinates”, J. Geod. Sci. 11 (2021) 111-121.

The idea is to enrich the students with new knowledge beyond what is usually found in the class and perhaps a brief introduction to research. I really hope these spur some interest.

Third Week of January

Third week: No real changes and more mockery.

I will be moving out from the budget hotel today, to return back to my real home. The renovation has yet to finish and I can't even park my car near my home at the moment. Just had to move out today since I can't afford staying at the hotel anymore. So it will still be chaotic weeks ahead, working at home, which is still in a mess.

The week that was: I have been sleeping less and less almost the whole past week. Much due to the deadline imposed for us to finish up our final exam questions (two sets, bilingual) by yesterday (before that, it was earlier agreed that the deadline should be extended due to flood crisis week(s) of no academic activity, but in the end we followed the original deadline). Lacking sleep and rest, one night, I had my blood pressure shot up to 164/114. For the reader's information, I was already on regular medication all this while, but then due to the increase, I had to take extra medication for this. Completed the task needed and worked real hard. I have yet to finish the needed lectures and will have to do recorded lectures to complete the whole course. As I have said before, presently I do not have a complete and stable set of notes for the two courses I am teaching. There is a lot of effort needed to prepare lectures for these courses (particularly Statistical Mechanics) because I prefer to internalise the materials so that I can lecture by what I have experienced in understanding them. For statistical mechanics, I even look up papers to make sure I have understood them correctly. I redo most of the calculations needed for both courses and these are done from scratch. 

This brings to another matter that suddenly becomes the talk of the week: an article written by a politician on our university. I was hoping to ignore this and carry on with our duties of teaching and research, but then there is a flood of mockeries by mob of (uninformed) netizens, depicting the university negatively. The outcome is usually stereotyping, which I am really against at (mainly because of clouded thinking). The university has already officially responded to this matter, but if experience counts, the stereotyping will linger for some time and we will continue to be objects of mockery. As I have posted in social media, the mockery norm is mainly due to individuals have the false impression of feeling better or superior doing so, not having to carry the burden and be responsible for whatever consequences that come after. For most of us (recipients) however, we will continue to work hard and evolve to be better, no matter how less ideal the situation we are in and the constraints and pressures that we have to face. Note that it is always easier to criticise (especially from outside) than doing things to improve.

When such derogatory articles are written, I often ask several questions. Who is the writer and what are his motives? Could he be bitter (I have seen a few of these) due to some past experience or any other ulterior motives (of individuals or of some party e.g. political gains) or is there any genuine concern to solve problems (usually substantiated by some actions)? In the recent past, the university has been subjected to allegations that were later found to be false or exaggerations or partial stories. Why is the university being singled out despite other (local) universities are doing the same (good or bad)? I do not know the answers to these questions but I will be interested to know them.

I have lived most of my life fending off stereotypes. From being a brown-skinned person of an average family, born in the environment of inferiority complex, where we were told that we can't do well in difficult subjects; worked through tertiary education from University of Adelaide to University of Cambridge to University of Durham. Set up a theoretical physics group when we were told that one theorist is sufficient for the department and that we should be grounded in the reality of our circumstances. Helped bring international visitors to the university (not for show but to learn better) and defended our mathematical sciences community, through the institute, for a better future. Sure, what we have done is not enough but surely these account for progress. If others can do better, please do so, rather than condemning what we are doing and painting our efforts with such gloom and doom. Even if some prefer the latter, we will continue to strive and we will not be sitting idle. So buzz off.

Second Week of January

We have gone past the second week of January 2022 and it was much of a trying week for me as I try to deal with backlog of tasks that I had to finish. Of immediate urgency is the tests and exams I had to conduct. I am still opting for open book online exams and their questions are often harder to set since it can't be something that the students can directly copy but yet the problems must be something that the students have seen before how to solve it. This is quite a delicate balance to handle. I have also drafts of PhD theses that I need to look into and for this, I really need a clear mind to go through them and such is not an easy state to achieve. 

These difficulties are compounded with the fact that my house has yet to complete its renovation though one can see some finished results. Due to this, we always have to get our daily meals outside and time is much spent travelling in and out. I am still staying in the budget hotel since the rooms that are ready, are occupied by my sons. I hope this week will be the last week I'll be in the hotel and that our main room be ready by then. The renovation has indeed consumed much of my savings but I guess this is for the long term benefit. Each of my son will now have their own rooms and it will be more spacious. The kitchen will be smaller though as we enlarge the room and toilet downstairs. The room will be occupied by my second son but possibly in the future, if this so happens to be, might be the place where I will spent my final years. Below are some pictures of the build-in furniture (one is to be filled by my tons of papers and books and another is our main room wardrobe) and the new 'stairs'.

To overcome boredom, I read with interest on some postings made by others in the social media. There seems to be 'debates' between 'public figures' of science and religion - more accurate term would be quarrels as followers of either side tend to do (egos are usually involved). Personally, I do not think the social media is a good place to do 'scholarly' discussions; there are other (existing) platforms that can be used. I, myself, prefer face-to-face discussions, either physically or virtually, where one is less probable to be mobbed by relentless followers of certain personalities. (So far, I use social media more like a diary and a link dump for me to refer to.) Even with face-to-face discussions, one is not safe from being heckled by some mob. I have two experiences where we had some science-religion discussions. One is at Unisza, where I presented the various logics that physics has suggested to us to consider or believe. My main idea then was to give update on recent theories of physics and their implied logical systems to scholars and students in religious sciences. It was not in my mind to undermine whatever they're researching or studying. Thereafter, I overheard comments or remarks about me being secular (perhaps me not quoting a single Qur'anic ayat or any religious concept) and some jested about how I pronounce mantiq (see here). Yes, I am not trained as an Arabic speaker. The second time was in IIUM where we had a forum on more or less the same theme. I was invited by my colleague there and the then Deputy Vice-Rector. My colleague gave some ideas on quantum theory where he favoured some degree of openness or incompleteness of the knowledge we have, and this makes room for (perhaps divine) active intervention. I reiterated what I have given in Unisza but also expressed my sympathy with a certain kind of determinism (not available to us) via (undetermined) hidden variables. This seems to surprise my colleague. I remember asking my colleague whether I should consider citing Qur'anic ayat given my previous Unisza experience but then he advised me, just be myself and so I did. I think there was no real conclusion from the event but I do remember somebody approaching me at the end (can't remember on what was discussed and there was no follow-up). In any case, just like the Unisza event, my idea is just to update the audience then on what I know, but not to preach them to believe anything (that is theirs to act upon or deny). 

Generally, I do try to understand issues of philosophy and of religion and I am still learning (perhaps that will pass me as shallow). I once said to my IIUM colleague, that philosophers tend to highlight extremes (perhaps to make marked boundaries) but most things are those placed in between. Humans are rarely consistent and tend to justify matters according to convenience or context or changing stance due to increase in knowledge and experience. It is in the final point that I wish both philosophers and scientists do take note on and progress. There will always be age-long questions that will go unanswered (most probably until we go to the other side in the hereafter). In the meantime, one should take up whatever small progress or understanding and that knowledge requires our humility (not arrogance). The other point that is part of my ongoing efforts is to deconstruct stereotypes. Debates in the social media, however, tend to do the reverse. We have to be very aware of this, aware of our own egos and biasness, be at our best behaviour and rationality, and tread carefully as we debunk our own thoughts and of others. I do wish the best to those who have try to convey what they have learned to the public in their capacity but do be aware of the potential pitfalls.

Final point to this post: we should be aware of our failings as humans. Those in sciences are as much susceptible to failings as others (say in religious sciences). In the past, I used to put higher standards of morality (stereotyping) with those proclaiming religious background but they are just as human as those without the religious background. Nowadays, I shift such judgmental views on my own self and if there are indeed failings of others, I will take them as lessons. Recently there are some surprising revealing facts about Schroedinger (being pedophile). Some tweeted that this has been mentioned in passing by Rovelli in Helgoland. Not having the book, I should start to listen to his YouTube interview by Brian Keating, if it was mentioned there. This is not the first time that I have heard of the human failing of Schrodinger: there was this Einstein-Schroedinger correspondence revealed by Ashtekar in his article. In there, it was mentioned Einstein's disapproval of Schrodinger's public sensationalization of his research:

"It seems undesirable to me to present such preliminary attempts to the public. ... Such
communiqu´es given in sensational terms give the lay public misleading ideas about the
character of research. The reader gets the impression that every five minutes there is a
revolution in Science, somewhat like a coup d’etat in some of the smaller unstable republics."

There are many lessons that can be taken here and let these be ones that guide us in communicating science to the public.

The First Week

My New Year wish (if any) is to make my life devoid of negative feelings. Within less than a week, this wish is destroyed when I heard that another one of my FYP students was getting damaging criticisms, to the point of possibly not following my earlier suggestions. Before this, one of my FYP student decided to change her education research because of suggestions made by her assessors during her seminar to include multimedia packages. Sincerely, I have seen some multimedia projects before this, that does not provide any real physical insight in understanding the physics content, apart from mere flashy animations. I would rather have her probe into some conceptual difficulties in undergraduate quantum mechanics. Here is one recent paper that does so (hey look, no animations). More papers can be found in this open access journal Physical Review Physics Education Research. The student finally gave up this idea of studying conceptual difficulties in quantum mechanics, and look into issues in high school curriculum instead. My style of supervision is that I tend to let students decide what they think is best for themselves but whatever it is, they need to show the level of work enough for a final year project. So here again, I'm confronted with another case. It really gets on my nerves. I welcome constructive criticisms but they must know enough to do so. Again, I let the student decide what he thinks is best for him and will not force anyone to do anything that he is uncomfortable with. Feeling annoyed, that night my blood pressure rose to 151/113 and had severe headache.

Theoretical physics has always been tough for our students because our curriculum tend to be skewed towards more applied nature. Students often run away from theoretical physics even without the encouragement of others to do so. Often there is a wide gap for students to cross over into theoretical research. Thus, for undergraduate research project, I do not expect them to do any original research (unless they are really good) but I do expect them to do their own calculations. Sometimes I do wish that those who criticise us (our students), would have a go at doing such theoretical problems. This is not to say that they can't do them, but merely to experience the difficulties. I certainly would not interfere on what should be done in experimental projects because I have no experience in them and I know that each has their own types of difficulties. To rub salt to my wounds, there are already remarks that one should not take many students and we have not trained well our theoretical physics students.

So largely the first week of January has been difficult for me and I have lots of things on my mind. Have always had headaches as I reach home from office. Yesterday was really bad and my BP was 150/115 with a severe headache. The headache prolonged into the night, until sometime before midnight, until my other half said I should go to the hospital. The fear was it may turn into a stroke if it went on and also we were hoping to do a CT-scan since the headache was already for a few days (after work). We went to Columbia Hospital but we were directed to Hospital Tuanku Jaafar. Blood test was done and my headache subsided and was released this morning near 4am. Was given medical leave for today.

Welcome 2022

So far, what's new with your new year? If one is like most people, things are just pretty much the same. Even so, let us not go overboard with cynicism and sarcasm culture that one sees quite a lot nowadays and look down on those who celebrate new year or write down new year resolutions. Be kind especially in these trying times. In any case, it is always good to be conscious of efforts trying to improve oneself, be this at the new year or for that matter at any other selected times (usually comes with certain meaning or understanding).

Talking about sarcasm, I remembered reading a social media post talking about the movie "Don't Look Up" and about education as overcoming stupidity instead of improving intelligence. I tend to see both stupidity and intelligence come in various shapes and sizes in a way that I normally prefer to think more on concrete ideas. Nevertheless, I do take the idea of overcoming stupidity as important. In fact, I use this as my drive to push for (hard) theoretical sciences. One does not learn much when one sticks to easy things; one needs to push for more difficult things to learn better (and hence not considered foolish when discussing matters at a technical level). This is particularly critical these days when ego gets the better of us and one falls into the pits of 'bodoh sombong' (arrogantly stupid).

In pursuing theoretical sciences, I normally devise four levels of attaining informationn and knowledge (and they are by no means, fixed with specific boundaries) for me to organise thoughts:

• Awareness: This level allows one to know what (areas) that one does not know. For me, I have the tendency to scout for topics that I wish I can learn but do not really have the time to pursue them. I do this by looking at the arXiv and note down interesting papers in Equatorial Frequencies. Most of these go unread, of course.
• General Knowledge: Of the things that I wish I could learn (from above), I normally identify certain specific areas (usually related to my own research) that I would try to make sure that I know what are their main ideas/gist and techniques underlying these areas. One may not know the details but can quickly approach them if needed. This is perhaps the level I expect generalists should have.
• Working Knowledge: These should be on the research areas that one is working on where technical details matter. One may not be considered as expert in the area but is sufficiently knowledgeable about it. This is also the level I expect master students can achieve.
• Mastery and Wisdom in Specific Knowledge: Here, one expects that details of specific areas are known to the individual with the ability to see connections between diverse topics, and sniff new research directions. PhD candidates should aspire to achieve this level. To be called an expert, the individual should have already attained this level. With my students, I often add our need to be reference point of the subject matter, not only to our local community of scientists but also the international community. The latter is the real test for most of us academics.

Having said all these, I consider these as signposts for me making my own personal judgements of where one is; others might want to consider things differently. One should be extra careful to expert self-proclamation; often such recognition is given by others in the (international) scientific community. As such, that is why I always felt that we still have a long way to go. I hope some will find these thoughts useful on this day of the New Year.