Inspiration from an old man

Yesterday, I was at the graduate director's office to get his approval for my master's degree presentation. There was an old man waiting before me to meet the graduate director. He was frail and had quite wrinkled skin hanging from different parts of his face. He was having many sheets of paper in his hand and was carrying a fully loaded conference bag. I was wondering why on earth such an old person would want to meet the graduate director! He looked at me and immediately started a conversation.

"Do you know what ECN stands for?", he asked me pointing to an ECN magazine lying on the desk at the office. I didn't know the full form of ECN and I thought I could figure out what it is by looking at it. I quickly flipped through the pages and could not find it. I gave up and replaced the magazine silently back in its place.

He then asked me some questions related to registering for the Systems Analysis graduate course at the ECE department. I figured out that he wanted to do that course and was surprised! I told him to e-mail the instructor and he said, "The instructor will not reply. You know how many e-mails I get per day?"

"No!" I said. "190", he retorted. I asked, "Who sends you those mails?"

"The IEEE," he said. I figured out that he subscribes to a lot of techie stuff online. I was amazed that at this age this guy wants to keep himself updated.

Our conversation drifted off, and he was complaining that the graduate director was not on time to his office. But the director was not very late and this old man went into the director's office and told him he wanted to take the course and got it approved. He showed some transcripts to the grad director, but the director was not interested in seeing that anyways. I wanted to know more about this old man, who at this age wanted to do the systems analysis course. I find it hard to keep myself motivated to do the Ph.D. at this young age!

It was my turn next and got my job done in no time. I wanted to catch hold of this old man and ask him more questions. I came out of the office and saw the old man doddering down the hallway and I ran behind him to talk to him. Here is the conversation between me and the old man, whose name I later found out to be Dirk Plummer:

Me: How old are you?

DP: 78.

Me: Why do you want to do the systems analysis course?

DP: Because I want a Ph.D.

I was puzzled! Why does this old man want a Ph.D. at this age? May be just for fun. I wanted to know more.

Me: Why do you need the Ph.D.?

DP: I want a job at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and they will not hire me if I don't have a Ph.D.

I was taken aback by his answer! "This man really has a goal", I thought. But was he close to getting his Ph.D? Or is he just starting his Ph.D? Man, he is already too old!

Me: How long will you take to finish your Ph.D.?

DP: I will take five years.

I was bowled over by this answer! This guy will be 83 years old if he is alive and everything goes well, by the time he will get his Ph.D. Why will PPPL hire an 83 year old guy? Does he have anything special?

Me: Why do you think you will be hired at PPPL? Why do you want to work there?

DP: Because, the researchers in PPPL are building a nuclear reactor and they think they know how to build it! They don't know and I know how to build it. I wrote a paper that was published by the IEEE in 1995 that showed that you cannot build a reactor with negative slope...

He showed me a lot of math from the paper. Now, there were only two possibilities. Either this guy is an extraordinary person or he is an eccentric guy (because it is hard to believe that people in PPPL are that dumb too.) Nevertheless, he was a great person to meet. I took a picture with this guy and told him he was a great inspiration. But I wanted to know why his ambition in life was to build this better reactor?

Me: Why do you want to build this better nuclear reactor?

DP: Because I have a daughter and I want to do it for her. It will make this world a better place to live.

I didn't have anything to say to his reply! We talked for some more time and he told me that he drives 34 miles to get to the campus. I stay just 3 miles from the campus and don't even feel like going to the campus daily!! He also told me that the toughest thing for him was to get A's in the courses. I felt I am so blessed that I can ace courses easily at my age.

I left the place with a big inspirational lesson. This 78-year old had so much motivation, drive and a single-minded goal. I have the advantage of easily understanding the latest technology as I grew up with it. He seemed to be struggling with getting used to new technology! But the drive in him was so inspiring!

I found this useful in Bob Parson's blog:

1. Get and stay out of your comfort zone.
2. Never give up.
3. When you are ready to quit, you're closer than you think.
4. Accept the worst possible outcome.
5. Focus on what you want to have happen.
6. Take things a day at a time.
7. Always be moving forward.
8. Be quick to decide.
9. Measure everything of significance.
10. Anything that is not managed will deteriorate.
11. Pay attention to your competitors, but pay more attention to what you're doing.
12. Never let anybody push you around.
13. Never expect life to be fair.
14. Solve your own problems.
15. Don't take yourself too seriously.
16. There's always a reason to smile.

Quotes

In this column, I plan to post some quotes that I read in my random browsing:

1. The harder you work through the easy times, the easier it becomes through the hard times. If you work hard at your basic training, the easier it is during the game situation.

- Merv Hughes, former Australian Test cricketer.

2. An excerpt from John F. Nash's autobiography (from the Nobel prize website):

So at the present time I seem to be thinking rationally again in the style that is characteristic of scientists. However this is not entirely a matter of joy as if someone returned from physical disability to good physical health. One aspect of this is that rationality of thought imposes a limit on a person's concept of his relation to the cosmos. For example, a non-Zoroastrian could think of Zarathustra as simply a madman who led millions of naive followers to adopt a cult of ritual fire worship. But without his "madness" Zarathustra would necessarily have been only another of the millions or billions of human individuals who have lived and then been forgotten.

Statistically, it would seem improbable that any mathematician or scientist, at the age of 66, would be able through continued research efforts, to add much to his or her previous achievements. However I am still making the effort and it is conceivable that with the gap period of about 25 years of partially deluded thinking providing a sort of vacation my situation may be atypical. Thus I have hopes of being able to achieve something of value through my current studies or with any new ideas that come in the future.

- John F. Nash Jr., the renowned economist and Nobel Laureate.

3. The main cause of all bondage is ignorance. Man is not wicked by his own nature — not at all. His nature is pure, perfectly holy. Each man is divine. Each man that you see is a God by his very nature. This nature is covered by ignorance, and it is ignorance that binds us down. Ignorance is the cause of all misery. Ignorance is the cause of all wickedness; and knowledge will make the world good. Knowledge will remove all misery. Knowledge will make us free. This is the idea of Jnana-Yoga: knowledge will make us free! What knowledge? Chemistry? Physics? Astronomy? Geology? They help us a little, just a little. But the chief knowledge is that of your own nature. "Know thyself." You must know what you are, what your real nature is. You must become conscious of that infinite nature within. Then your bondages will burst.

- Swami Vivekananda, Complete Works, vol. 9.

4. Ponting said he had an obligation "to play the game in the right spirit" and try to bowl 90 overs in the day. "We speak about it at every team meeting," he said.

"I've told the bowlers, the whole team, for a couple of years now that if we keep going the way we are there's going to be some time or moment where it's really going to come back and hurt us. I'm not saying that's right now, but there have been other times where we've had to do that."

- From an article from cricinfo after former Australian cricketers criticized Ponting for not bowling his best bowlers to restrict India in the 4th test at Nagpur in Nov 2008. If anyone sways away from *dharma*, it is surely going to come back to hurt them.

Thus Spake Adam Gilchrist

This cricinfo feature seems to reiterate why the Australians are so successful in their cricket. It is good that young Indian cricketers are exposed to their practices while playing alongside these experienced cricketers like McGrath, Warne, Ponting, Gilchrist and Lee, who excelled during their playing days. They learn unconsciously when they try to keep up with them. The one fact that caught my attention was:

The prolific Rohit Sharma has attributed part of his success to Adam Gilchrist. "He told me not to get swayed by the results, as my job is only to keep performing."

Isn't this what Lord Krishna tells Arjuna in Chapter 3 of the Bhagavad Gita? It might be easier said than done, but Adam Gilchrist is probably practicing it and no wonder he is successful!

There were many other things in this article that had me awe-struck. Ricky Ponting's dedication to fielding, McGrath's attitude to practice, Brett Lee's camaraderie, Shane Warne's acts of encouragement -- hats off to the Australians! They deserve to be on top.

Meeting Bob Wilson

I did attend last week's picnic celebrating Jim Gordon's 80th birthday. I was amazed to see a group of world-class physicists who had come to attend the picnic. They spoke praising Jim Gordon for his exceptional leadership skills. Notable among those who spoke were: Herwig Kogelnik, Arthur Ashkin, Linn Mollenauer. It was inspiring to hear these people say that Jim was just a great colleague and manager, and created a great atmosphere for research. I could imagine the electric atmosphere for research at Bell Labs those days!

The most exciting moment came when Jerry introduced me to Bob Wilson, who won the Nobel prize in Physics for his discovery of cosmic background radiation, that provided the experimental evidence for the Big Bang. "Nice to meet you" he said, as I shook his hand. I immediately started asking him some questions. "Did you build this telescope?" I asked, pointing to the horn antenna behind me. He said, "that horn was already there when I joined". "It's a section of a parabola," he said, pointing to the curvature of the horn antenna.

"Where were the pigeons?" I asked, as I had read the story of pigeons being killed. "Oh! the pigeons are dead! We shot'em. They were in the small chamber and I sent it as far as the campus mail could get". He meant the Whippany campus, when he said "as far". "There was a guy who loved pigeons and we sent it to him. He found that they were junk pigeons and let them free. They came back to the antenna. We finally had to shoot them," he sounded sad.

"Do they pay the Nobel prize money in Swedish currency?" I asked. He said, "Yes! they do. I had to convert to US dollars here. Those days the Nobel prize money was tax-free. Nowadays, it is not." He was apparently 72 years old and he still works in a Radio Astronomy lab at Boston. He was also telling us about the radio telescope they built in Hawaii.

It was great to meet and talk to a Nobel Laureate. They are normal human beings, do not have a great ego. I guess they just work hard to earn their fame!

Inspiration

The final lecture of the WINLAB seminar series was scheduled to be given by Rajiv Laroia (Senior VP, Founder and CTO, Qualcomm Flarion Technologies) today and I decided not to go to Crawford Hill. Jerry Foschini had told me that I should not miss the picnic, but I really wanted to attend Rajiv Laroia's talk. The picnic was to celebrate the 80th birthday of Jim Gordon, who was one of the pioneers in quantum electronics. He used to work in the building and retired a few years ago. His experiment to make the MASER work had dawned the era of quantum electronics.

Jerry called me at 5 PM to ask me if I wanted to discuss a presentation I had to give at Crawford Hill on Thursday. He was very excited about a speech by Charles H. Townes, who was the thesis advisor of Jim Gordon. It is just amazing that Charles Townes, 93, flew a red-eye flight from CA just to attend his student's 80th birthday celebrations at NJ and flew back immediately to CA -- the reason he gave was he had a busy schedule!

Charles Townes won the Nobel prize in Physics in 1964 for his contributions to fundamental work in quantum electronics leading to the development of the maser and laser. Jerry was understandably very excited when he was telling me about Townes's talk. Here are some things he told me over the phone:

When Townes was appointed an associate professor at Columbia University, he was dissuaded by I. I. Rabi and Polykarp Kusch, the then department chair of the Physics department of Columbia University not to pursue his ideas about making an oscillator at longer centimeter wavelengths, where ammonia has intense resonances. Rabi and Kusch were outstanding physicists themselves -- both won the Nobel prize in physics. But as an associate professor, Townes had tenure. A department chairman could not fire him simply because of a disagreement or incompetence. "No," he said. "I think the experiment will work and I am going to continue." Among other people who thought that this experiment will not work were Neils Bohr and John Von Neumann.

Two months later, Jim Gordon rushed into the class that Townes was teaching and excitedly told him, "It's working!". The whole class followed Townes and Gordon to see the demonstration of the maser.

Jerry was really excited that he shook hands with Charles Townes and got to speak to him. I was so inspired at the other end of the line. Here is a great man (well known for his contributions to communications theory) getting inspired by another great man! I surely missed seeing a great scientist. But finally Jerry told, "Chandru, I will treat you for the picnic on Thursday". He made my day!!