Posts in category Other funny things
No pasaran?
Today me and about a thousand of other Dutch professors, this comprising a third of the whole stock, have had a rather unusual day. We put on our ceremonial gowns. We come to the Hauge and made a long procession around the Parlement and central streets. We have filled a rather big concert hall to attend a “special academic session” where high functioniers of education and research gave speeches. Afterwards we have had a fast Dutch lunch and ridden back to work.
It could have been a part of a silly bureaucratic tradition, but it was not. This manifestation was the first in Dutch history. The goal was to express our protest agains the goverment. It has proposed cuts on education and research, while setting as a goal to bring this land to top-5 knowlegde-driven economies. Well, budget cuts are usual. However, this year they are especially painful and unjust. Even the university high brass that is usually ultimately conformistic and collaborative with political elite, went amok. At least they spoke about “deceit of electorate” and cite EUR l0^{10} – 10^{11} losses the economy would suffer as the result of these cuts.
It was a demonstation of a rather unusal solidarity of the whole university community. It was also a demonstration of solidarity with the students that massed in another place in the Hauge later in that day. It went rather peacefully. However, in the end of the day there were reports of mounted police and that with dogs assulting the kids. This does not sound nice, does it.
A rather academic question is if the government will now implement the cuts in their full un-glory, saying “Pasaremos”. Can we strike a compromise or just simply strike together with our students? We’ll see.
FOM monday evening
I was in Veldhoven yesterday evening to take part in a traditional annual gathering of the leaders of our physical community. Most if not all research in physics is financed by FOM, our splendind foundation whose single goal is to investigate the Matter. This is why this is the FOM Monday evening.
The event combines socializing, reasonably good dinner, and bureaucratical games. For me, the first is a challenge, while the second and third is enteraining, so I like to go there though a trip to Veldhoven always takes more time than expected. They usually offer a good collection of cheap end wines conform to my taste. I enjoyed white wine, rather dry, almost green in taste, I enjoyed it so much that even on Tuesday morning my brain was dry and a bit green.
The main topic was the (mean) duration of Ph.D. research. An expected time of Ph.D. is 48 months in this country, at least the salaries are planned for this time period. It turns out, however, that the mean duration is 55 months. And in addition there is a long tail of the distribution to longer durations. Till recently, the FOM paid this extra salary with no question asked. Yet money is scarce nowadays. The foundation has asked us to consider the reduction of these overdues. It supplied the request with a lot of statistics meant to reveal “bad” and “good” practices in this respect.
I don’t know. I did my Ph.D. in 34 months. 48 seems me a lot. I don’t understand why a student that requires the prolongation of this term should not feel like a looser not able to prepare for examination on time. Even if he/she is such a looser, the feeling is pretty bad to start an actual carreer with. Believe me or not but none of my students did it longer than 48.
Yet a tradition is the tradition. All group leaders I saw around have displayed a polite but firm resistance to any plans to reduce the mean time, usually reffering to “risky character of scientific research”.
Unusual ideas sprinkled in the end of the evening, like giving the students (or group leaders?) cash awards for making Ph.D. on time. Very well, if this becomes true, I’d reckon it’ll be fair to ask FOM to reimburse me the prolongations I have not made thereby saving the foundation money. It’d be like a million: my personal account is ready for that.
In the end of the evening, when everybody was sufficiently tipsy, it appeared that we all are supposed to sign the Treaty of Veldhoven that requires making 90% of all Ph.D. withing 48. If I’m not mistaken, I saw Jan Zaanen signing it.
Blackboard agenda
A year ago I’ve already complained about the site that gives the schedules of university personnel including the students. In a development, they decided to supplement the site with build-in personalized agendas at the Blackboard, called MyTable. The results have followed quickly. This is what I read at the Blackboard today:
At this moment My Timetable doesn’t present all activities correctly yet. Mis-presentations can occur especially for activities scheduled over several days in a week. Much effort is put into solving this problem. From January 21, 2011 onward My Timetable will present all activities correctly.
So I will wait another week to correct my activities…
Happy New Year
to you,dear reader, let our hopes florish, let us be joyful and optimistic, let’s get our portion of happiness and get it over with. Let unexpected happen provided it’s good, and let the expected not to occur if it’s not so pleasant! I toast ratio, creativeness and belief, let them prosper and multiply.
Best wishes!!!
Summary 2010
Let me summarize the year: assuming nothing drastic would happen in several hours left.
It was a year full of motion and new impressions. I travelled a lot: I’ve been three times in Germany, twice in US and Russia, I got to Japan, Sweden, France, and even Belgium. I’ve met many old friends, and got new collaborators: Frans Godschalk, Dima Pikulin, Toshi Kubo. 6 papers have appeared in press. I’ve got several good scientific ideas, two of them promise a long interesting research, potentially opening new fields. I gave a lecture at my alma mater and survived Colorado highlands. From community side, Leo DiCarlo, Gary Steele, Sander Otte have joined our faculty. Andre Geim got Nobel prize. On family frontline, my eldest son Alexei graduated and has departed overseas in pursuit of Ph. D.
That was good. There were many things happening that were not really bad but were wounding my vanity. There were many things I intented to work on or accomplish but have done nothing about. My favourite research lines slowly drop out of fashion. I’ve been cited 551 times, 8% less than a year ago. None of my grant applications has been approved. There was a discussion to propose me for a big local prize: nothing came about. The list of articles that are finished but wait for write-up has not become shorter: it’s grown. I am especially unhappy about non-written research with Hongduo Wei. Nothing has been done with my personal website. Alex Savchenko and Mike Tinkham have departed from this world. On family front, the youngest son has been having all kinds of problems with his studies.
Give me, my Lord, the mood to thank you for everything from the two above lists. And perhaps, if you find it useful, the ability to learn the lessons you give to me.
Stevan Nadj-Perge
born in Kikinda, Serbia, has secured his Ph.D. title yesterday.
The promotor was Leo Kouwenhoven. The back side of the thesis showed a quantum yo-yo, an indespensible component of quantum calculations. The title of the thesis was “Single Spins in Semiconductor Nanowires”
During the event, the “dark years” have been mentioned many times: 2,5 years Stevan has spent in clean room trying to fabricate, for no avail. The sucsess has come relatively recently, and the thesis contains several important achivements, including of course the “Disentangling”, the topic we have collaborated on.
Good luck, Stevan, with futher carrier. Many remember your perfect smile that persisted even during “dark years”. I was impressed with your propositions: they were so correctly unpractical or, to formulate it better, so unpractically correct. I could sign every of them, provided I’m a bit yonger and can afford being unpractical.
Matti Laakso
my Finnish collaborator, was visiting Delft in the week past. Unfortunately, it was rather busy and chaotic week and I cannot work with him as much as I wanted. Still, we were able to achieve some serious progress regarging the processes that determine overheating in superconductor-insulator-normal metal-insulator-superconductor structures (SINIS, it only sounds that long and artificial, it fact, this is a very natural structure and is relatively easy to make).
Matti is going to complete his PhD thesis in coming year.
On his way back, he had a mixture of trouble and luck. There was again a snowfall on Friday, and again the transport managers have been caught unguarded (what is going on with this country anyway…) Three thousand people have been stranded at Schiphol airport, and estimated three thousand could not reach it at all. On this background, Matti was relatively fortunate. He’s only spent an hour in a train that has stuck in Schiphol tunnel, waited three extra hours for his flight (the only one within Europe that has not been cancelled) and managed to get home on the same night.
So I wish him best luck with his PhD thesis as well.
Roma, citta di eterno amore
I’ve promised a nice trip to my mother on occasion of her birthday. That should have happen in April, but the volcano has cancelled our trip. So this was a second attempt.
In the beginning, it was not better than the first one. We were to depart on Saturday Dec. 4, and there was a catastrophy: a snowfall. Notwithstanding the fact that such phenomena occur in this country with strange regularity, nobody seemed to be expecting this. The public transportation was paralyzed. Our train trip to Schiphol took three hours. It could take five, but we took a taxi cab from Amsterdam Zuid. With a great moral and financial effort, we have arrived on time for our flight. Our happiness did not last long: the flight has been cancelled, nobody could overbook it and nobody could even free our laggage trapped in Schiphol catacombs. To make a long story short, we have arrived to the Eternal city only on Sunday 23:55, to learn that there are no regular ways to leave the airport that late…
Anyway, we had Monday, Tuesday and most of Wednesday to enjoy Roma. It was warm and reasonably dry. Since my mother was there for the first time, we did all usual touristic things like jumping over stones of Forum, queuing to St. Peter’s cathedral, rushing through Borghese gallery. Less touristic things included the visit to Sancta Sanctorum where I contributed to polishing of Scala Santa with my knees, and unplanned encounter with the Pope on piazza Spagna on occasion of the feast of Immaculate Conception (being Orthodox, we were not even aware of the feast).
The way back was not trivial either. It looks like if one takes a taxi in the beginning of the trip, one keeps taking it till the end, and missed trains and trams just provide a good excuse to enjoy this kind of transportation.
Hakone
Tokura-sensei was so kind as to drive me and Kubo-san to Hakone on Saturday, Nov. 13. Hakone (箱根 ) is a mountainous area west of Atsugi. Hakone checkpoint used to protect the only pass connecting Kyoto and Tokyo plain areas. Hakone houses many hot spring resorts, offers astonishing views of lakes and mountains, Fuji-yama included, and is a popular destination for domestic and foreign tourists.
So we hiked over mountain trails that were enhanced with bamboo trunks but did not get any easier. We smelled sulfur of volcanic vapour. We got into unearthy valley of Owakudani where smoke, hot water and heat come from the ground. We ate famous black eggs cooked in sulfur-reach naturally-boiling water. We took a cable car to get the views of Fuji and the lake Ani. We ate observing lavish pirate ships that cruised the lake. We took a good stroll along the lake shore.
It was a wonderful day, I am thankful for that.
O-yama and Shonan
This is a report of my activities in the weekend 6-7 november. I found myself in a semi-urban- semi-rural area of far Tokyo suburbs that spread tens of kilometers in any direction. The area is pleasantly exotic and convenient (you kind of cannot get lost in mountain taiga), so eventualy I opted for long walks.
My Saturday destination was O-yama, 大山, that is, “Big mountain”. Ten years ago I sucsessfully climbed it, and that was my intention for this time as well. However, I could not find the path I took ten years ago (they say it used to be female path to this holy mountain). I took the main path starting by the cable car station, male one, one who everybody takes. It was rather crowded. The path eventually consisted an ancient-looking stone stair that interrupted and changed directions randomly, following the slopes. After some time, I have reached lower shrine, at half-way climb, where everybody has been going. There was crowded, one can enjoy magnificient views of the valley below, or temples around. After resting a bit, I got a strange thought: perhaps, I do not have to get to the top at all. Perhaps, after tramping 17 kilometers of suburbs and hopping the stone stairs it won’t be such a joyful adventure. And I followed the thought. Getting wiser?
On Sunday I headed straight south. I seldom get to Pacific ocean and did not see it for ages. So it was 15 kilometer walk to Hiratsuka, to famous Shōnan (湘南 ) beaches. Several kilometers south to Atsugi I was able to get a glimpse of Fuji mountain, first time in my life. Hiratsuka appeared to be a nice and clean resort city, somehow resembling Schevingen. The beaches were good, also of Schevingen type. The difference was the sand color: volcanic activity in the area made it black. You guessed it correctly: it was rather crowded. People have been playing volleyball, fishing, some teenagers have been actively surfing ( ocean waves). Nobody swam, though the weather was fine and water did not feel too cold. So I also suppressed this natural desire (getting yet wiser?).