Shawal 1440

So today is the 7th of Shawal, 1440. Muslims in Malaysia celebrated 'Eid-ul Fithri on Wednesday last week. This year round, we celebrated 'Eid initially at home, and is one of those rare years. More often than not, we tend to do this in my other half's hometown. The celebration at home is pretty simple; beginning with Eid prayers at Masjid Hussain in Seremban 2. This is followed by the mutual forgive-seeking salam between our family members and also photography sessions for memories. Below are the photos.

After having breakfast together, we went to Segamat to my sister-in-law's place and were there until the next day. For our travel back to Seremban, we were caught in a massive jam and it took us five  hours to reach home. It was only the next day that I get to see my sister and niece in KL, brother and sister-in-law in Kepong. At my eldest brother's house, I decided to take photos, in part to capture and admire his good book collection. I took one book out since I did not notice it before and they immediately gave it to me. See pics below.

I wish we had taken more at the other homes but somehow refrained out of respect. So one of the things I've learned this Shawal is that despite we think we had problems in life, others are facing much bigger tests and challenges. As my sister Zaizah mentioned in a message, greater people will be tested more severely. May Allah help us to face our challenges and live out our life in the best way we possibly could.

Reappointment

Yesterday was supposed to be my last day as Deputy Director of INSPEM according to the previous appointment. I had emptied the filing cabinets, bringing home papers and what's left are just things that are visible outside and those on and in my desk. However by noon, got the reappointment letter as Deputy Director and hence the other letter before it, applies i.e. will take up the duties of the Director until a new Director is appointed after the restructuring. As much as I wanted to leave, I have to put aside my personal wishes and problems and take up the role of a caretaker until the restructuring is settled. This is for the benefit of INSPEM. Earlier, I had wanted to focus more on science particularly graduating my students. This may now need adjustment. Given that I have only about three years of services left, hope to give a new push for theoretical physics with new plans. In the past, I had to put my theoretical physics interest to the background, so as not to give the impression I'm pursuing self-interest above the institute. In addition, I was at the service of previous directors and some theoretical physics proposals did get shot down by others as we are in the minority. Now if it seems that I'm pursuing my interest more, I hope people will understand it in the context that I have not much time left to do this anymore. I do not expect anyone else to fight for theoretical physics for us; we have to do it ourselves.

With the reappointment, I hope all of us in INSPEM will still be able to work together and support each other. My own idea of the institute is that we are servicing the researchers as well as providing opportunities and creating a conducive environment for research in mathematical sciences. Despite some criticisms thrown at us, we are not here to defend the status quo but in fact we want to go beyond it and do new things. I believe if we are judged fairly, some of the things we do in the past (so-called INSPEM 1.0) are indeed so. For the so-called new phase of INSPEM 2.0, we are indeed required by the university to have niche areas though personally I would not be too strict on this. If we ever had acquired wisdom from the scientific past, we know that many progress in science are interrelated and some are unpredictable. Identifying niche area should not stifle creativity but instead promote it. I know that by pursuing certain niche areas, we will risk losing members and researchers but I suggest we take stock of those presently who wants to contribute to the institute and build from there.

Another personal view is that I see pursuing the Ministry's HiCoE direction is only a short term goal and thus my earlier comment of not being too strict about it. Despite the advantage of obtaining more financial support from being a HiCoE, there is a longer term goal of being internationally reputable. This is enshrined in our own institute's vision and also that of the university. Our past activities have done this to a certain extent and we should build on this in a much more serious manner. The idea is to forge more longer sustainable and reciprocating international research collaborations beyond individual collaboration. We had already MICEMS at our doorsteps (actually we had a few more before) and personally I would like to keep this active. Individually one can only do so much but as an organization, we should be doing better. Presently at a more individual level, I have already a few international (and national) invitations and in the process of building others. But I will leave in a few more years and thus if these international relations are not pursued at the organization level, they may just end when I leave.

I think I have said enough. let me just sum up with these: build traditions and this will outlast any change of leadership, our ambitions and ourselves.

Varia: Social Media and Nice Acronyms

Yesterday, it was my last lecture for Special Relativity class. I wasn't really satisfied how the class went and wished I have could prepare more but my mind was really elsewhere all this semester. Nevertheless, I was glad that I did something more than the last time I taught this course. Perhaps, if given a few more times teaching this course, I would come up with my own stable set of notes. After the class, we took some photos just for my keeping (see below).

I posted these on social media and seems to attract a lot of attention. I guess it was due to the young faces who are brave enough to take up such a technical subject.

My posts on the social media (FB) have been mainly on what I (or the group) do and what I think on some issues that I personally face. I would shy away from commenting unnecessarily particularly on controversial or viral issues. I don't intend to be a 'public intellectual' as some would like to be. However my postings are meant to be read by others especially close friends, students and staff. So is it attention seeking? Yes, in a restricted sense to a limited audience but I would be embarrassed to do anything more than that. I remembered a colleague of mine said to me that I should inform others of what I do so that people are informed but not for showing off. People are often repelled by the latter.  I have set up some private FB groups for students and staff if the postings are a bit sensitive or unsuitable for public display. I do open up public FB groups to announce some of our events and to show what we are interested in, say in Friends of QuEST.

QuEST is the acronym we made up for Quantum Explorations of Science and Technology. On FB, this is our private group and hence we set up Friends of QuEST for the public. It was originally named Qfizik, named after the website I hosted long ago between 1997 and 2015 before it went dead. One can go here to see some of the pages captured. Renaming it as QuEST is more eye-catching and perhaps symbolizes what we are trying to do. I was happy with this acronym but Quest has been used in other places (see here) like http://merlion-quests.neel.cnrs.fr/ (but we are earlier and theirs have an extra 's'). Before, QuEST itself we had EQuaLS, an acronym which I am pretty pleased with as well. The acronym is for Expository Quantum Lecture Series and as the name implies, it is meant for lecture events that we organized. Perhaps it also represents what we aspire to be, as equals to the many distinguished theorists out there. The event has unfortunately stopped due to lack of financial support and the loss of our mentor Prof. Syed Twareque Ali. In Goldin's memorial talk at Group 31 (available here), EQuaLS was mentioned. See also here for the obituary published in Journal of Geometry and Symmetry in Physics. So far, we never got the courage to do EQuaLS again and is very much a loss since our students and researchers had gained much from the presence of distinguished international speakers in EQuaLS.

Finally another acronym I'm pretty pleased to have made is MINDS for Mathematical Institute for Natural and Disruptive Sciences. It was one of the names suggested during our institute restructuring exercise but we never got to use it, but it would have been attractive for us. So far we are still retaining INSPEM. Perhaps MINDS can be realised elsewhere.

Putting up acronyms may sound trivial to some but to construct clever, memorable and meaningful ones are not easy. In some cases, the acronym may be undesirable e.g. PIG for Physics Interest Group. For the world of marketing, in fact, building up acronyms is indeed important - see "How to Build Acronyms That Spread Your Ideas Like Wildfire". In the end, what matters is what we actually do and the reputation that we build.

My Teacher, Szekeres

15 days to go. Today is Teacher's Day and I will post about teaching here. Trying as much to forget admin problems and worse, politics. I rather look elsewhere where the environment is more trust-building and genuine science development.

So the past week or so, been focusing on my course this semester which is on "Special Relativity and Classical Field Theory". This course has only been taught a few times; at best is three times but in recent period, only twice. It is an optional course and being theoretical, it is almost always not being offered since very seldom that students want to take the risk of taking the course. The course itself was designed years ago based on the courses that I took from Department of Mathematical Physics (now no longer exists) in University of Adelaide (see picture below) in 1983.

The courses was taught by Peter Szekeres, a disciple of relativist Felix Pirani. He is the son of a famous mathematician George Szekeres. Peter Szekeres is perhaps best known for his Szekeres solution for inhomogeneous cosmology.

On teaching the Special Relativity and Classical Field Theory course, I do not have a stable set of notes (like I do for Quantum Mechanics). Thus I experiment around with what should be taught but the core of the course is what I have learned from Szekeres himself. So I build some sketchy notes, updated with new materials from books, particularly from Faraoni's Special Relativty book. There are other books of course that I read because my habit when teaching is not to follow a single book but collect the best ideas from several books strung together with my own logic or understanding. Now some may criticise this approach and also for not getting the most current book. I tend to differ from many on this, while I understand the need for current progress, I value very much tradition. Particularly for the subject of special relativity (foundational), there are not many new developments to go through unless one goes into general relativity. By sticking to the core of Szekeres' notes, I, more or less, pay tribute to one of my teachers in Adelaide. I will do so until I have my own set of ideas for the special relativity course - I can see a few different paths now (not yet realised).

Szekeres also taught me General Relativity in the Honours year. But there is one valuable lesson that I got from Szekeres before finishing my study in Adelaide. I was already thinking of doing research and I was attracted to a fashionable topic at the time i.e. supersymmetry and supergravity (a natural extension from my Honours project on Grand Unified Theories). When I told him of this interest, he was telling me that my personality (timid) don't quite fit such a competitive field. I took this as a challenge and immediately started reading Wess & Bagger and Van Nieuwenhuizen. My interest in this continued for a while until I found Witten's "Topological Tools in 10-Dimensional Physics" which blew me away. Note I was one of the early subscribers to International Journal of Modern Physics A, until I could no longer afford them. My dream then was to establish such high-powered theoretical physics in Malaysia (and a dream still) and Szekeres' challenge contributed to this. Hence, my thanks on this Teacher's Day.

Physiotherapy in Ramadhan.

We are about to enter the second week of Ramadhan. Trying my best to keep my spirits up. My last post sounded emotional but as an ordinary human being, I can't simply shut out the emotions but certainly I will not let them overpower my thinking faculty. Whether anyone believes whatever problems I'm facing are real or not, it does not really matter anymore. Perhaps someday I'll reveal publicly what I know simply for us to take lessons from or maybe they will just get buried with me. For now, I need to make my conditions better.

Yesterday, my other half suggested for me to go for physiotherapy for my back problems. There was a physiotherapy clinic just opened several months earlier, nearby our home and we decided to try this out. My earlier hesitation has always been the cost but my conditions has worsened since coming back from Italy. So finally she made an appointment for me at 4.30pm yesterday.

Being the first time there, the clinic has no records of what my ailments are. I started explaining my back problems and mentioned about my scoliosis, lower lumbar degeneration and slight protusion of the discs and muscle spasms. As the therapist (Jovi) tried to investigate what my ailment really is, she explained about structural problems and muscle problems. On examining my back, she mentioned I had a slight C-scoliosis. It is only after some physio treatment and exercises, that my present ailment is mostly due to piriformis syndrome due to my excessive sitting and weak back muscles.

Later that night, experienced some pain probably due to the reaction of the treatment. Thus rested for the rest of the night. Thus, my earlier plan of doing more (overdue) work had to be postponed. Had purchased a package at the clinic and will continue the treatment at least for a few more sessions. During the exercise, Jovi jokingly said that I need 100 more sessions. I laughed even though I'm in pain.

First Few Days of Ramadhan 1440

In Malaysia, 1st Ramadhan of 1440 Hijri calendar, began on Sunday night on May 5th. As usual we look forward to the Tarawih prayers. This time round, I was not that fit healthwise as I hoped for. My other half and I simply prayed at home while my sons went to the mosque. It is normal that the first week or so, there will be larger congregation than usual. We continued to do so the next day. Perhaps thinking of all that had happened in the last several months or so, some sadness descended on me on the second night and broke into tears to the surprise of my other half. Felt that my life after this will be short and am not sure I have done anything useful.

The day thereafter, I just had to strengthen my will to go to work. Taught the Special Relativity class and helped prepare the students for their second test (held yesterday). Tried my best to stay positive but it seems to be a difficult week. There were matters happening that seems to test my patience and had me on the defensive. Can't explain the burden that I'm carrying. At present, I just wish that May 31st will come soon as I have grown very tired. I wanted a quieter and less stressful life.

I pray that the following few weeks of Ramadhan will be better for me and make me the better person I want to be.

The Weak Leader

Ramadhan is just around the corner and I'm not sure what I am feeling right now. It is already May and by end of the month, my term as Deputy Director will end. Part of me wants to carry on fighting and struggling but the aged part of me just felt tired after all the struggles. Felt that I have lost on the one hand and felt that I'm unwanted on another. Whatever it is, I will take this as a humility lesson that will help me to be better, wiser and stronger. Those who felt that they have 'won', I wish them all the best.

I am very much aware of all the criticisms leveled against me all these years: being volatile, being unprofessional, second-rate mathematician, weak leader, some of which can be dentrimental to my career. However, I will take all of these for me to learn though I may not necessarily agree with all these accusations. Most of the time, whatever role I'm taking, it is almost accidental. I did not campaign for them. As a Deputy, even when I hold different opinions with the director, I have always carried out the wishes of the leader of the institute as agreed in our meetings. During the double stint of me as acting director, it is always my belief to carry out the important traditions made by the previous directors. For instance, I have resisted the reduction of management meetings particularly during the transition period. Nevertheless, I have my own vision of what I wanted the institute to be. Most of the time I have to go for less due to practical constraints. If ever there is leadership in what I do, I tend to practice it differently. I consider research institute is where creativity thrives, always on the look out for something different but yet keeping the main traditions grounded. I do not consider rigidity in management gels well with the creative environment we would like to build, thus I may practice flexibility wherever possible. When it comes to 'managing' people, I believe in the institute as a learning organization whose members are mature and emphasise learning. Thus, I like to give trust to people to do what they think best but they must learn when the handled matter doesn't work out. Sometimes this is seen to be 'weak' by some. Note that I have 'scolded' staff before (not frequently though) but I quickly try to forget such incidents and cherish the trust being built and the teamwork developed. I may not agree with something and I would leave hints just for people to take up, think about it and understand. I try my best to lead by example wherever I can but as a human, I am limited and I'm not infallible.

I tried to understand the psyche of my staff wherever I can, so that I can give the best reaction to arising problems the way I know how. Certainly handling staff is difficult, and way more stressful than solving mathematical problems. This is why in management meeting, I joked about knowing the psychology profile of the staff and colleagues. In fact knowing human interactions is one of the identified important skills that the future worker should have. I even do evaluate my own personality. I have attended the Wisdom Leadership Workshop that the university had conducted for us in 2013. Most parts of the workshop, I enjoyed them because I was learning new things that I have not known before. I took the MBTI test and was classed as INTJ which means Introvert, iNtuitive,Thinking and Judging (I actually thought I was INTP with judging replaced by perceiving). The test was quite detailed but one can do an online test to see what type of personality that one has. Mine was given here.

So I guess that is weak leadership for you and I 'enjoyed' being the weak leader I am. Late this afternoon, my other half had told me, just leave after 31 May. Be the regular guy I was and need not take up any important roles in the future. My close colleagues are also telling me the same thing. But there is still one leadership role that I yearn for - scientific leadership. There is plenty more for me to do for theoretical physics in UPM and perhaps I will just focus on that.

Finally to the staff, keep learning and hope you will have a better leader to move forward.

Do We Deserve An Institute

*I've given this post a provocative title just to jolt our minds but please read on.

Ever since I'm back home from Turin, had developed a bad cough that disrupts my sleep for almost a week now. I have also decided not to go on with my early retirement idea and will work until my retirement age of 60. This is much due to financial commitments and putting food on the table for the family. If possible, I would like to work until I'm 70 since my thinking faculty is still reliable though my physique has gone weaker. On the problems of the institute, I try not to think about it too much and leave this to the younger heads of laboratory. I think they will handle it well with incoming support from the industries. The new institute that they hope to pursue is very much different from the INSPEM that we know and I hope they succeed. I knew Dr. Rezal had the industry support for a cryptology institute even before the current restructuring exercise; the former director (Rezal's father) Prof. Dato' Kamel had told me of the idea during the transition period of the incoming second INSPEM director. I told him at the time that such intention may make INSPEM weaker and pleaded then for it not to happen. Anyway, I will play a minimal role from now on but will still support this new initiative in the hope that there is room for quantum information science to grow within the context of information security. Another aspect I would like to see developed in this new institute is data science for which my interest in this is complex networks and topological data analysis. Thus, my younger theorist colleagues may want to consider to be part of this new institute with this possible venture of these areas. It is however their choice but I would say having industries supporting the institute would be the main attraction. Another thing I need to say theoretical physics at the department will still be in the minority and may not receive much attention for some time. In fact recently I found out a junior physics lecturer started to discourage my own student to pursue theoretical physics and I find this very disappointing.

Another thing that I find encouraging coming out from this restructuring exercise that there is a possible cultural transition from simply R&D to L&D especially for our research officers. You will probably heard of L&D from Mah Kam Lin's talk in our 'Topics in Data Science' event. L&D is life and death alluding to the survival of businesses (note: L&D can also mean learning & development and I don't mean this). Below is an interview with Mah Kam Lin where she mentioned L&D.



Prof. Kuru told me that she has a physics background. The reason this was highlighted is perhaps due to some perception that looks down on physicists (and I'm not trying to project a superior image of physicists).

With all the focus in management problems recently, I also got to be interested in how our scientific thinking can help us understand human problems better. This leads me to another person with philosophy training grounded in physics, namely Dave Snowden. I have been watching quite a few of his videos. Here is one that gets up close with his ideas:



Here is another which is more technical (but conceptual) that may has relevance to our situation today:



Going back to the institute; I hope given that INSPEM is more or less closing down, we should draw lessons from the whole affair. Do note that the institute is closing down not due to its performance but more on the redundancy perception (rightly or wrongly) with the Maths Department. And there is of course politics. I hope those who are pursuing the new institute will take heed of these lessons. INSPEM will certainly be missed. Deep in my heart, however, I hope that sometime in the (far) future, there will be another opportunity of setting up a research institute that encourages fundamental and foundational research, exploring sophisticated abstract technical ideas, charting new territories of mathematical sciences. And when given such opportunity, a good question for ourselves is "Do we deserve such an institute?"

A (Bad) Dream

After getting back from Turin, I experienced a severe bad back and cough. By the time I get to KLIA (no name change yet), I was feverish and I had to lie down at the airport to get some strength back. So most of the Sunday, I stayed in bed resting, trying to get my body back to normal; sleeping and waking up at odd hours.

At one stage, I woke myself up to a bad dream. I just came back from a long trip abroad. As I walked into the office, I found everything misplaced, including the stairs! Tried to make sense of the situation (in the dream), I managed myself to get into the office and saw many strangers there. I yelled "What is going on here?" Somehow I understood these strangers are simply moving agents trying to pack up things due to the closure of the institute. I felt terribly frustrated about this as no one consulted me on the matter. Then I woke up.

I hope this will not happen when I go to work this Tuesday. Today, I'm taking leave to help lessen my back pain. But I guess from the dream, the pain is much less from the pain of losing INSPEM (even if I'm not really wanted there). Yes, all the years spent there and ended up with nothing.

Torino, 14-19 April 2019

Ever since I've met Prof. Lamberto Rondoni, particularly after the inauguration of Malaysia-Italy Centre of Excellence for Mathematical Sciences (MICEMS), I had my mind set to visit Turin and Politecnico di Torino. It was only three years later that it got realised when there was surplus funds from Erasmus+ that funded staff training. The trip to Turin came at however an unfortunate time; the weekend I was flying to Turin was the weekend that the university had the transformation workshop. I had to leave it to my younger heads of laboratory to present a case for INSPEM. Had kept my mobile phone on with international data roaming to receive updates.

My flight to Turin had two stop overs, Singapore and Frankfurt. Had to opt for this for a cheaper fare. Luckily the luggage went straight to Turin. The flight from Singapore to Frankfurt was about 12 hours long and we experienced some turbulence along the way. At Frankfurt, I received the news that the management had decided to close down INSPEM and be transformed as one research centre of excellence in the Faculty of Science. While I anticipated such result, I was still disappointed with the outcome for reasons that I have mentioned in the precious posts. On the flight to Turin, I was thinking on what should I be saying to Prof. Rondoni. MICEMS, however, is independent of INSPEM and the closure of INSPEM should not in principle affect MICEMS. Nevertheless how MICEMS is going to be placed within all these transformations is still uncertain. During the flight then, saw the sceneries of the Alps (see below), while thinking deeply of how much effort we have put in INSPEM and MICEMS.

On reaching Turin, took a cab to the University Residence at Paolo Borsellino (costing 31.50 Euros). Took a while activating my International Data Roaming before taking the keys to my room.

Rested a little before meeting up with our Research Fellow Santo Banerjee. We took a walk and I told him about INSPEM closing down. He was certainly visibly upset and stopped our walk, perhaps digesting implications for his position at the institute. I told him we have yet to discuss on migration of staff and there is no clear cut picture for this. We stopped at a park to take a rest before walking back to our residence.

The next day, we are supposed to meet Prof. Rondoni at Valentino Castle before he goes to University of Turin (nearby) for some lectures.

Lamberto gave a quick history of the castle which also housed the Faculty of Architecture. He brought us to some places which are not open to the public. We saw the meeting rooms of the Faculty (still being used).

Below is the ceiling of the Faculty of Architecture Dean's office.

At the time, they were preparing for Leonardo da Vinci exhibition due to be opened that afternoon. So we got a quick pre-exhibition glimpse of the displays. We saw some handwritten manuscripts by da Vinci and even some hand-built models of da Vinci. It was rather tempting to take photos of them but I did not, out of respect. Later I regretted it.

After the meet, we went to the International Office to sign some documents and then we had lunch.

While waiting for Lamberto, later that day, we met Francesco Malaspina, an algebraic geometer who, according to Santo, knew Bengali. We also met a collaborator of Prof. Rondoni, Paolo Mario de Gregorio during our discussion with him. Our discussions were mainly about INSPEM and MICEMS, some of which I should not disclose but he was concerned about the position of Santo due to INSPEM's closure.

The next day, I met INSPEM's mobility students who just arrived the day before.

We (me and Santo) also got our passes for our office (shared with others). Then we had lunch.

Later in the evening, we had discussions but more on scientific matters. We were contemplating of getting some international or private grants. I mention about the possible venture of using Nambu brackets to help quantize chaotic systems, which may be of use to semiconductor lasers (where I send some related news to Santo the next day). Then Lamberto asked to prepare a talk for the idea, the next day.

The next morning, I received another news about the possibility of INSPEM 'not being closed'. It would be based on the proposal of INSPEM 2.0 that Rezal (our head of lab) had presented on the Sunday workshop. Told Santo and Lamberto about this and they were happy about the news. In fact Santo immediately mentioned that he may proceed with the research proposal with Marco Pizzi of Altek Group. We (me and Santo as Lamberto had lunch appointment with the Vice Rector) then had lunch.

Much later that evening, I gave a talk on quantization and Nambu brackets. But I had to stop before the place I wanted to finish as it was getting late.

There were points about constraints and quantization raised by Lamberto that I could not answer and I was curious on how he could 'circumvent' this point in an earlier work he mentioned using Dirac brackets. He mentioned he had some notes on this and I was looking forward to see this.

The next day we are supposed to continue the discussion but early that morning, I received more messages, one of which slighted me off. It seems that I was sidelined from any further discussion on a new institute that was suggested to replace INSPEM. While I have mentioned that I prefer not to be in the 'new management' if there is one, I am still interested to see what goes into the new institute researchwise and there is of course MICEMS interest to be taken care of. It reminded me of the days before the formation of INSPEM and I went to form (unknowingly) Laboratory of Theoretical Studies in ITMA, only to find out that INSPEM was formed a few months after. Later this lab is closed down despite the message that I got was to merge.

So for that morning, I wasn't in the mood for discussion. We discussed only general matters. Lamberto gave me some references for his work but he could not find his notes. I had also left my notes in my room after reading his review article on transient fluctuations and steady-state fluctuations that are relevant to our discussions yesterday. Then Santo left to catch a flight in Milan and I simply waited for our lunch. At lunch (together with Paolo), I almost took pasta with meat in it but Lamberto generously bought me another pasta dish which is vegetarian. After lunch I said goodbye to Lamberto and Paolo but my mind was occupied.

Back in the room, I pondered on the situation. It seems clear that I'm not wanted in the new set-up. Even with INSPEM, sometimes I felt like I'm an outsider and it did not make my duties any easier. I hated the politics. Chatted with my other half, whether I should apply for early retirement. We have always discussed about this each time I'm stressed out with work problems. Should I do it? I know I have some pending duties with many students ungraduated yet and I do wish that I am able to do more work with MICEMS. I guess I'll wait until I reach home to decide on matters.

Today is Good Friday which is supposed to be a holiday (though some offices are not closed and Lamberto told me he was coming to office). However I have to checked out at 10am from the residence. I felt I should just check out and go straight to the airport. The cab now costs 34.50 Euros. At the Turin airport, I started to write this post (and conitinued in Munich) since I had so much time before the flight.

The Week That Had Me Worried

From last week, I thought I would be spending this week to prepare for some research ideas to bring over to Turin. Instead, I spent much of this week, planning and defending our research institute in mathematical sciences. Got myself involved in discussions that are very volatile - once something is agreed upon, such decision will probably change in the next few hours. All of these are related to the fact the whole university is embarking on a huge transformation programme. Why is this happening, I am not particularly clear, though the word that seems to go around is essentially cost-saving and effective use of human resource. However, I am puzzled why measures for cost-saving and effective human resource cannot be done without making huge changes to the academic structure. When people argue that one needs to be adaptable to the changing times, there are usually assumptions underlying them. One should pose questions on what are the things changing and what are the things need to be adapted? Another argument that is always put forward to me in recent times as a justification for change is that people prefer the status quo but again what are the assumptions? I certainly do not want status quo if it means the lackadaisical environment that we had about twenty to thirty years ago - in fact, then I was screaming for change. But what is the situation now, we have in some way, improve researchwise and academically (comparing to the old times) over the years incrementally (of course it is not perfect). Disturbing the (academic) structure in such huge way, will put us in a far-from-equilibrium situation (in physics language) and if uncontrollable, it may end up in an undesirable state. Even if it is under control, it may take time for the system to relax back into a new equilibrium state. Take for instance the Putra Global 200 (PG200) aspiration which is only a year away. With the huge changes under way, this will put PG200 achievement at a great risk. Of course, I'm looking at this externally; maybe there are things that I do not know.

Going back to the institute, I can safely say that the institute has contributed substantially to the research ecosystem of mathematical sciences and I have facts and figures to support this. Somehow this is ignored and we are criticised for other aspects instead. We are ready to address these criticisms given the opportunity. In fact the last week or so, we have been brainstorming on some changes that we could do (and some of these even surprised me). We were then told that we could come up with many new ideas but this comes with uncertainties and risks, perhaps doubting that we could do it. I could have retorted that the huge imminent change brings even greater uncertainties and risks. Let us suppose that we do want to minimise the 'risk' and that the institute needs to change in the specified way that they wished for. Then I would say, whatever criteria and conditions that they use on our institute, should equally apply to others. Unfortunately I don't think it is so. We have been cherry-picked and that there was a campaign against us from the beginning. So it all boils down to politics. I have no wish to be involved in such politics. As far as I am concerned, we have been doing the job as we were asked to do without interfering others. It is very disappointing to see such politics in the academia and I prefer not to be in such environment. I hope those involved will be equally responsible when such political-play goes south as much as they had pushed for the situation.

To my colleagues in the institute, thanks for all the support you have given me and all the best in your future undertakings. For now I prefer to concentrate on the science.