Posted in February 2010
Kees Harmans
has given today a talk at Quantum Transport group meeting. He’s promised a "colourful" one, and he gave one. Main topic was an original project of making a superposition of two photons in two different oscillators, that is, of two different colours. It is both doable and interesting project. Actually, I believe the resulting state will be entangled: just if one defines entanglement properly.
Kees has struck us with suggestion that this may well be his last talk at the group meeting: he will retire in the end of the year. So in the last part of his talk, instead of sketching the prospects of research, he told us about his plans for retirement. He has listed many interesting activities, and physics of noise (produced by aircraft) took a part in the list.
Thanks, Kees, I’ve enjoyed both parts of the talk as well as the combination of the two. May God help me to give my last talk as you did: remaining inspired and inspiring.
Jake Taylor
has given today a talk at our Nanoscience seminar. I knew dr Taylor as being involved in collaborations that resulted in interesting and ground-breaking publications. I came to listen to him with high expectations.
With no exaggeration, this was the worst talk I ever attended. I’ve listened to more than a thousand scientific talks that have varied very much in skill, comprehensibility and general qualities. However in every case the speaker attempted to relate the subject of the talk to the previous research, put it in the context known, and from very beginning give a preview of the results. At least, explain the title of the talk. None of these four elements were present in the talk of dr Taylor. In the beginning, the speaker has encouraged the questions from the audience. So I have asked some: I could not know that the speaker encouraged questions just to ignore them.
Dr Taylor must be a respected scientist, and the talk might be quite illuminating at the end. Unfortunately, I cannot stay till the end: I just got very unpleasant feeling and left after forty minutes. I have not understood a slightest bit of it.