Posts in category Organization

Several years ago I’ve came to Delft to work in the Department of Applied Physics. That sounded almost as Department of Physics and the organization of it was similar to that of a conventional department. There have been many changes. If the organizational changes manifested itself in morfological modifications of the subjects of organization, I would have looked like a violet-pink flying octopus.

What used to be solid-state part of department of physics is now Kavli Institute of Nanoscience, which is commonly misspelled as Kavli Institute of Neurosciene. Kavli is a rich person who likes sciences as much as helping them financially. He kindly gave a donation to us, this is why we are called Kavli Institute.

So Kavli day is kidna birthday of our organizational unit and also a way to make use of the donation. It was centered around a lecture of Michael Roukes. The title contained "Biological Integration" but it was not that bad. He just explained how to sniff with a mechnanical resonator (a kind of nano-violin) which is potentially important for drug development (I guess). It was a high-level presentation with amusing side stories.

There were activities typical for a "bedrijfsfeestje" including lunching, barbequing, exercising, biking etc.  Unfortunately I had to prepare a lecture for Friday and had to skip most of it including beef well-deserved. Yet I was on time to take part in hight-light of the evening: teasing a young (Dutch) bull.  Lieven Vandersypen has emerged as an unbeatable torero: newer knew him from this side.

Everything has been organized by Hans Mooij. He’s made it very instuctive by demonstrativing us hidden treasures of Delftland,real pearls not known even to Delftenaren. The lecture itself was in a 16th century church that has been used as a warehouse since 1963 and promoted to a cafe two years ago ( I recall prosecution of Chirstians by Communists, the cities of my childhood had many warenhouses of the type). A bike ride from Delft to Maasland is a pure pleasure where you discover many such treasures: just make sure that you are on the right (western) side of the channel.

Today was a really big day: Ph. D. defence of Jeroen Danon where I happened to be a promotor.

The day has passed in an unbelievably smooth fashion. I got up early and finally have had time to read the thesis and devise a question. The commitee members who had to come from five different cities today all did it on time and have gathered in a correct place. The rector has been very considering. The only really foreign guest we have had has managed to understand and perform all complicated manipulations with hat, did not stamp on his gown and has uttered "waarde promovendus" without any hesitation. All commitee members had polite and sensible questions. The candidate has not collapsed in the course of the event nor he even got pale. Contrary to expectations, he was polite with commitee members even in cases he did not know the answer. In last several minutes, he was kind enough to outline a theory of ideal goverment: thing we all miss. To make my day prefect, he complimented me on my speech.

So it was all good. The only sad thing is of course that Jeroen has finished. We have been working together for five years, and I will miss him. He will go to Berlin to proceed with post doctural studies and thus become a real German Beamte. We still have unfinished projects, most importantly, a textbook on Advanced Quantum Mechanics.