Klein Hsu' blog 盛宴之後 After the Party...

Martin Hellman, co-inventor (well, at least in the U.S., independently from the U.K. team in GCHQ) of public key cryptography, cited by the book Code Book , "... only fools keeps trying. You have idea number 1, you get excited, and it flops. Then you have idea number 2, you get excited, and it flops. Then you have idea number 99, you get excited, and it flops. Only a fool would be excited by the 100th idea, but it might take 100 ideas before one really pays off. Unless you're foolish enough to be continually excited, you won't have the motivation, you won't have the energy to carry it through. God rewards fools" We have been little, but not completely fool for a while in the lab. And we got a little reward. We might continue to be.

Richard Feynman, in Character of Physical Law , (p. 168) "What are these philosophies? They are really tricky ways to compute consequences quickly. A philosophy, which is sometimes called an understanding of the law, is simply a way that a person holds the law in his mind in order to guess quickly at consequences." Reminds me of Dr. Shepard quoting his professor, "Never start the calculation until you know the answers." That's the understanding of laws and the physical picture. Not any less important in experimental physics. One needs to have very good physical pictures, especially at micro-scales, to guess "what is going on down there." Good physical picture helps designing, de-bugging, getting results much faster, while a bad one throws one into confusion and frustration.

一個師兄第4年就準備口試畢業了。上下幾屆的人幾天來就見人不斷地說：「I can't believe it! Can you believe GT is defending!?」充滿了哀怨的氣氛。

Grow. Gain strength. Fight with the giant.

Getting along with the manual is quite a nice way of learning.

Have seen the TA evaluation for the Spring term, for Phys0110, Introduction to Physics for health-related majors. A bit surprised to see some improve on the students' comments and performance averages, since I thought I put less effort on TA this term. Most of the comments are pretty positive, though still some complaining my English is hard to understand. But when seeing that they like the recitations, I felt it's all worth the effort. Every time in the mid of the term, I felt like "NO, I am not doing this anymore!", but upon seeing the encouraging comments, (well if not so much research work ahead), I feel like doing TA again! Like a senior friend of mine in the group, now an instructor in a college, told me that research is most of the time frustrating, but for teaching, you will quickly see the reward.

别人交待的事作到就好。念文献、这类背景的事自己要抓紧时间作，别人不会给你留时间的。 --Dan

快樂的人，並能夠欣賞一門學問的美妙和難處。

As I was helping one postdoc searching for an apartment in an office, my boss came in. He said he wanted to say goodbye to me since he was leaving for Beijing and at the time he is back I will have leaved Taiwan (or at least Taipei.) He said "At this time I don't know what to say. Just do your best and develop your career. "Be good." Then I shed tears. The words are extremely simple and plain, to some extent just like himself. Just like he said, if I stay in the academic circle, we will have many chances to meet each other. 謙謙君子 清清如水 我的寶貝

“和去年比起來沒有新的東西，這樣還值得大家花錢花力氣來辦這種大會嗎？”

今天一個外國的教授來給演講。 剛開始，就出現Skype訊息的聲音“啾哇”， 接著就是來電的鈴聲。 原來是speaker的老婆要找他。 他就當場在大螢幕上用Skype傳訊， "take to you later" "I am giving my talk now" "xxx say hi to you?" 相當特別的開場娛興節目。

Boss辦公室的窗戶， 對著向晚太陽的方向。 有幾次在傍晚時間找他討論。 他坐著討論久了， 就會離開椅子， 走到窗前看著窗外沈吟。 陽光斜斜射進房內， 還蠻有fu的。

所作的理論(十幾年內)能不能被驗證？ 能不能提出measuralbe quantities? 若不能， 它為什麼會是顯學， 為什麼會熱門？ Why should we care about that? 氣候在變化、 石油快用完了、 糧食價格也在上升。 當地球的糧食有限時， 生植汽油 把窮人吃的糧食拿來燒， 這種車你敢開嗎？ 地球的資源減少時， 最先被砍的就是沒有用的大東西，eg. 加速器… 五月天 - 晚安，地球人 紫皮膚　大腦袋　血液不綠也不藍 在我已經毀滅的星球　我比五月天還帥 那一年　大逃難　爸爸把我丟上船 光的速度能比愛恨快　所以我也忘了哭 來到這裡　一光年外 沉睡七年的蟬　換取七天的燦爛 生命穿過漫長年代　直到名為人類的災難 諸葛亮赤壁戰　萬人一塚的豪邁 千年之後重回螢幕裡　還是征戰的舞台 難道會又重來　媽媽他說的混亂 誰能還清自己的卡債　誰能控制核子彈 誰能頓悟輪迴會來 大人在冷氣房作戰　小孩在太陽下逃難 石油田的乾旱　華爾街捲起災難 終於人們發射了飛彈　捍衛自己的晚餐 多害怕在未來　人類對一切習慣 拿著字典一頁頁的翻　始終找不到的字 是不是愛　是不是愛(地球人晚安) 不要是愛　不要是愛(地球人晚安) MV@YouTube

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA 檢視較大的地圖

昨天的Colloquium是耿朝強來講〈粒子物理與美〉。 演講中提好幾個例子， 問大家人的臉左右完全對稱美不美啊？ 8 II 的鏡像 II 8 美不美啊？這是對稱的maximally violated 還是conserved啊？ 覺得SUperSYmmetry醜死了等等… 講完以後， 大家在大廳聊天吃點心休息， 我看見Boss在幫他的女兒紮頭髮， 我很想衝過去跟他說：「老師，這就是美了！讓我為你們照張相。」 但我終究是沒膽。 BTW，有一回ex-Boss要給演講，講題是〈The Beauty of Physics〉， 據說結果是在講B physics (b quark 的物理)。

ich：老師，我們明天晚上想請你吃個飯。 Boss：你們是誰？ ich：我和家父… Boss：誰是ㄐㄧㄚ ㄈㄨˋ？ ich：哦！是我爸爸，還有媽媽… Boss：我還以為是有人叫加富，以為是周家富咧！

Howard La Mode Cafe dinner, after the LHC Working Class meeting. 開胃菜， 草莓鮮蝦沙拉。 很餓的我吃了好幾口才想起要拍照。 (前面的現烤香葱餐包已經…) 不過基本上還是看得到草莓、蝦、和沙拉。 菠菜蝦仁湯。 主菜， 什麼什麼翡翠雞。 (餓的時候看菜單，只能看到某些關鍵字。) 中間有馬鈴薯泥。 旁邊有酸酸甜甜的醬、蔬菜、和菇。 基本上是雞肉捲， 裡面包著…也許是菠菜吧。 裡面還有起士(還是乳酪？)調味。 甜點布丁。 飲料奶茶。 還有，老師們熱烈的政治話題。