The Gown and other Matters.

It was once the tradition that scholars would wear their academic gowns at all times when they were at the university. I think here at Oxford the professors stopped teaching in robes sometime in the 1970s (probably because they were all wearing bell bottoms and love beads). Nonetheless, the academic gown is still used very heavily here. At many of the colleges, it is still required that the fellows of the college (faculty etc) wear their gowns at high table (I.e., at dinner – where the faculty sits at the “high” table and the lowly students sit in the rest of the Hall: think Hogwarts). Somerville, where I am a fellow, is somewhat more progressive, probably due to its history as a women’s college until the early 1990s. We only wear robes for a few rather formal occasions, such as important meetings, graduations, examinations, and the like. I’m just as happy not to have to wear a gown at high table, as I’m certain the sleeves would end up in my soup.

The first meeting of the governing body of Somerville (of which, as a fellow, I am a part), occurred this week, which was the first time I had to wear a gown. Although Somerville offered to provide one, a number of the other fellows recommended that I probably wanted to get my own. Taking a walk down the old cobblestone streets, I stopped into the robe-shop. The old man behind the counter muttered “Size 50.. Hmmm interesting”. He then showed me to a rack of black gowns that all looked pretty similar to me and he asked me to choose one. Then he said, curiously, “you know, the robe chooses the scholar”.

At this meeting of the governing body, I was officially Admitted to the Society of Fellows of Somerville – which entailed Dame Fiona Caldicott reading some Latin – and required me to respond in Latin. (No references to that scene in the movie top secret where the monks all speak pig latin). The rest of the meeting of the governing body was mostly a discussion of fiscal matters and the discovery that our college is certainly not infinitely wealthy, although some of the other colleges appear to be. (The endowments of the different colleges at Oxford differ by up to a factor of ten).

After the meeting there was champagne and tea for my official welcome, which was certainly a very nice touch. By this time, I’ve met many of the other fellows of the college, but this was an opportunity to meet the few remaining ones who have managed to avoid me so far. On the whole they seem to be extremely nice and they all seem to get along with each other too. I'm told this is not necessarily usual for an Oxford college. I like to think of us as Hufflepuffs (yes, I am a geek for twice quoting Harry Potter in this Blog entry). So far I've met three engineers, a biochemist, two chemists, two classicists, two psychologists, two biologists, two mathematicians, two historians, two other physicists, two italian scholars, and a german scholar. I think I can remember one or two of their names.

Inauguration Day

Today my country inaugurated its 44^th president, Barak Obama.I really wanted to watch it live with other Americans, so I looked on the web to see where this might be happening. There was one gathering of expat democrats at an upscale club where you needed tickets months in advance. (Scratch that). Then there was another gathering at a local Hawaiian bar that wanted to celebrate the first Hawaiian president. But alas I fear the tropical drink. So I settled on a gathering at Rhodes House (check out the interactive map of the complex). First lesson of the day, Cecil Rhodes had a $^!&*-load of money. Quite a house it is (as compared to the rest of Oxford which is so modest. NOT). They had a huge projection TV set up in one of the large public rooms.Most of the people there were students, and many were American. It was a fun crowd to watch with.Everyone dutifully booed when Cheney came wheeling in looking oh so much like Mr. Potter from “It’s a wonderful life”. Everyone cheered when Michelle Obama showed up in her bright yellow dress. There was a rather strange moment when everyone laughed at the Queen of Soul singing “My Country 'tis of thee” which is sung to the tune of the British national anthem “God Save the Queen”. She is still wonderful, although she don’t quite sound like she used to.Some people looked like they were crying a bit when Obama took the oath of office. I loved his speech – but then again, I love everything he says. The Americans stood for the National Anthem at the end.Even though I am 3000 miles away, I still felt that I was part of a very important event in the history of my country.

Welcome to England - Avoid the Germs

I’m not sure if it is completely fair to blame Air India for this, but being that they charged me 243$ extra for four small suitcases, I think they probably could afford to install some better disinfectant system. I had the feeling that I was travelling on a giant petri dish, and one week later I discover I was right.

So I step off the air india flight to the UK last Monday morning at 6am and by 5 pm Thursday I have strep throat. I don’t think I’ve had strep since I was in high school, so I thought it was the flu at first. In particular, I failed to remember the other main symptom besides the high fever and the wicked sore throat: the rash. Woo boy. I look like I got massively sunburned 360 degrees around from knees to shoulders, like a lobster. And it itches like the bejesus. So this delightful little welcome wagon will give me my first experience with the British health care system. Unfortunately, to complicate my life it turns out that I do not yet have a national insurance number (there was some snafu and the paperwork was delayed). Nonetheless, I now need to convince someone to give me some damn penicillin. Although right now I think I would settle for some hydrocortisone to get rid of this nasty rash. I’ll keep you updated.

First update: Walked into the local health clinic with no identification whatsoever, explained my story and they happily gave me an appointment for later this afternoon.

Second update: The doctor apologized for being 10 minutes late at the end of the day and then spent over half an hour examining me. Not that I was unhappy with my doctor in NY but to get his full attention for half an hour would probably have required four visits. He concluded that it looked like a strep infection of some sort - but not the typical strep throat. More likely scarlet fever. Prescribed penicillin to kill the strep, and zantac zirtek and a large bottle of calamine for the rash. Doctor's visit was free. Drugs totaled something like 15 GBP. So far I'm thrilled with the british health care system.

Third update: After 36 hours on the drugs, the fever is certainly gone and even the persistent painful rash seems to be fading a bit. I can even stand up and sit down without wincing (Note to self: never get a sunburn on rear). Thank god for penicillin. Thank Alexander Fleming.

The second necessity upon arriving in the UK

In addition to food, the most important other basic human need is shelter. This is particularly important being that it has been quite cold out here recently -- dipping below zero in the last few days (zero Celsius that is. Well, the Brits think this is cold at any rate). I can't remember if I already blogged about the place I am renting. Oxford is a bit like NY or the bay area -- everyone wants to live there so real-estate is insanely expensive. The university understands this and has various systems in place to help faculty find appropriate accommodations. In my case, I am renting a place owned by the college for a very reduced rate. Unfortunately, the college owns only a few places and most of them are filled, so I only had the choice of one possible building which I then accepted.

The apartment (or house, or flat, I'm still not sure what to call it... terraced house (in American terms it is a 2FL 2BR 1BA attached row house with garden) is actually quite big by Oxford standards in terms of total floor space - but it is rather strangely set up so I'm not actually sure how I am going to make practical use of this space. The downstairs would be a terrific living/dining area if they removed the wall between the living and dining room. As it is, the living room and dining room are both much too small. Unfortunately, the wall is there and I have to figure out a way to live with it. To make up for the tiny living room, the bathroom is huge. You could play football in there (the American kind, not soccer. I don’t think there would be room for that).

So right now I am staying in this rather large house and I brought only four suitcases, so it is a bit sparse. Of course I shipped all my stuff from New Jersey, but in the meantime, I had to borrow a bed from the university until my stuff gets here next week. On the other hand, when all my stuff was all boxed up in NJ, it ended up being a whole lot of mostly junk (mostly books and clothing-that-was-only-barely-good-enough-to-keep). I was rather hoping that the transporting ship would sink and I could just collect the insurance and start over. Unfortunately, I was just told that the ship did make indeed it to the UK, and through customs and they will deliver it all next week. I didn't send a bed, so I'll have to go buy one this weekend.

The biggest disappointment of this apartment is that there is a washing machine but no dryer. This means either I will have to set up drying racks and lines (which is a pain, particularly since it tends to be humid here so nothing dries quickly) or take my stuff out to be laundered. After living without laundry machines for the last five years or so, i was looking forward to coming into the 20th century. Alas.

The location of my flat is really close to the college and the physics department, in a neighborhood known as Jericho, which looks really nice. There is a very fine pub right across the street. I could be a frequent guest (See above comment about gym).

The first necessity upon arriving in the UK

You might think it is strange that my first blog entry from the UK is going to start with food, which the British are not particularly known for. However, eating is one of the necessities and I think it is generally a good idea to iron these out first.

I arrived in the UK two days ago and since then most of my time has been spent meeting people, running errands, and cutting through red tape. Of course I have learned many many things so far -- mostly things like who is in charge of getting me registered for national health insurance and other necessary but boring facts. However, in addition to these boring things (and a few interesting things about physics) a rather large number of the random things I have learned have to do with food.

(1) There is some automated web-based system that tells you everything you need to know about dining at the college. To have either lunch or dinner you click something and they know to expect you. The same web site apparently lists a bunch of other information and rules about dining. Unfortunately, I don't have a login yet, so I am breaking all the rules and everyone is too polite to correct me (to begin with I am showing up without having clicked on the website)

(2) Daytime feeding time at Somerville College Oxford is roughly 1 pm. Fellows (professors, readers, lectures) and other important personage sit at the high table in the dining hall. The table is filled from right to left as people arrive. But when the Principal of Somerville College, Dame Fiona, arrives, she sits at the middle of table in a larger chair reminiscent of royalty. At this point the rules change and you are supposed to sit with Dame Fiona and seat outwards from there.

(3) The food at the college, so far, is pretty good. I already feel I am at risk of being the oldest person ever to put on the freshman 15. Desserts appear to be particularly dangerous. Fortunately, I had my cholesterol checked recently and it seems to be very good so I can afford a bit of British cooking. Then again, cholesterol or no, I'd like to avoid getting any doughier than I already am (My brother would tell me to go to the gym and lift weights. Got to figure out where the gym is. Then I've got to start going.)

(4) Dinner is not served this week (the term has not started), so I've been fending for myself. Found a decent bagel with salmon and cream cheese for dinner... and tea… speaking of which…

(5) Tea and coffee for fellows of the college (faculty etc) are served in the "senior common room" after lunch. This reminds me a bit of the "staff porch" we had in summer camp years and years ago -- although it is decorated a bit more like you would expect of Oxford: bookshelves of ancient books. Big plush victorian couches, chairs, and rugs. Paintings of long-since dead faculty and donors. And the motto is posted in latin, so I have no idea what it says.

(6) Tea in the theoretical physics building is served at 11 am in the discussion room. A mug of tea is 30 pence and a hobnob cookie is 5 pence. Coffee is more expensive, but appears to be the good kind. I think there is also tea served in the neighboring physics building in the afternoon. And of course there is tea in the senior common room of the college again at 4pm. I suspect I could easily fill an entire day going from one tea to another, then to elevensies, then to lunch, then tea, then..., then... I'll have to try that sometime just to see if it is really possible.

Betty

I'm feeling a bit verklempt about having sold my beloved honda civic, Betty. The guy who bought her (a young jewish guy named Oren from Long Island) seemed really nice and he was SO excited to find a 4DR standard transmission civic.

I bought Betty new, for a bit under 14,000$ in August of 1997 when I first moved to Hoboken. I didn't know how to drive standard transmission at the time, so the first few weeks were a bit rough. But she was patient with me, and within a few thousand miles we were getting along great. I really enjoyed my time alone with her --- driving to and from work was a time to prepare for the day, or recover from it. When she was feeling feisty we tried to set new speed records (23 minutes. I bet you can't beat that in a Porche!). On the weekends, she survived many a road trip, and she dutifully carried heaps of windsurfing equipment on her roof and in her trunk, and she never complained.

The most amazing thing about Betty was how reliable she was. Even after 175,000 miles, really nothing had gone ever wrong with her. Two flat tires, occassional new muffler, and two broken windshields from rocks being thrown up at me by trucks, but nothing worse than that. It is hard for me to even imagine that I will ever have another car as great as Betty.

I almost cried when I handed over the keys.

My Last Day at Bell Labs

After 11 years working at Bell Labs, today was my last day.

For the last 9 of these years I have been the head of a department that has done research on topics ranging from neuroscience to theoretical physics to experiments on quantum computing. During that time I have had some truly exceptional scientists in my department. I wish I could say that I helped them all with their research, but that is far from true. Someone once described my job as being like the sport of curling -- sweeping the ice so that the stone can go in the right direction. The scientists in my department knew better than anyone else what direction they should be going. What they needed from me most, was just removal of various impediments, and good strong representation to the higher authorities. I like to think that I managed to provide this on most occasions.

In trying to write an homage to Bell, I could think of nothing better than simply the names of the people who have reported to me, and where they are now.

• Loren Pfeiffer, Ken West, and Kirk Baldwin will be leaving Bell for Princeton in Spring of 2009
• Mike Manfra is a Professor of Physics, Material Sciences and Electrical Engineering at Purdue
• Bob Willett remains at Bell
• Sharad Ramanathan is a Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University
• Ronen Rapaport is Professor of Physics at Hebrew University
• Gang Chen remains at Bell
• Nicolai Zhitenev is a researcher at the National Institute for Science and Technology
• Girsh Blumberg is a Professor of Physics at Rutgers University
• Oleg Mitrofanov is a researcher at London Center for Nanotechnology
• Chris Fuchs is a researcher at the Perimeter Institute
• Anirvan Sengupta is a Professor of Physics and Biology at Rutgers
• Boris Shraiman is Permanent Member of Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at Santa Barbara
• Michale Fee is a Professor of Neuroscience at MIT
• Mark Schnitzer is a Professor of Biological Sciences and Applied Physics at Stanford
• Rafi de Picciotto founded a startup company in Isreal
• Stephen Van Enk is a professor of Physics at University of Oregon
• Chandra Varma is a professor of Physics at UC Riverside
• Phil Platzman is a researcher emeritus at Bell
• Anton Andreev is a professor of Physics at University of Washington
• Partha Mitra is a researcher at Cold Spring Harbor
  

I'm sure I missed some, as I'm reconstructing this list from memory. I'd like to thank all of these above listed people for their support, their friendship, and their great research that made me look good just by being associated with them.

In addition to these members of technical staff there were quite a few excellent post-docs (and it is more likely that I've missed a few here)

• Alex Punnoose is a professor of Physics at City College of New York
• David Lubensky is a professor of Physics at University of Michigan
• Joel Moore is a professor of Physics at UC Berkeley
• Aris Moustakas is a professor of Applied Physics at University of Athens
• Alexei Tkachenko is a professor of Physics at University of Michigan
• Stephan Schmult is a researcher at the Max Planck institute in Stuttgart
• Richard Hahnloser is a professor of neuroinformatics at ETHZ in Switzerland
• Luca Marinelli is a researcher at GE
• Evgenii Naramanov is a professor of Electrical Engineering at Purdue
• Raissa de Souza is a professor at UC Davis
• Oana Malis is a professor of EE and Physics at Purdue
  

Similar thanks to all of these people. There were also some wonderful students (and I'm certainly certainly missing many many more here)

• Simon Trebst is a researcher at Microsoft Station Q
• Gunnar Moller is a postdoc at Cambridge
• Anna Lopatnikova, is a hedge fund manager
• Yaroslav Tserkovnyak is a Professor of Physics at UCLA
• Ilya Berdnikov defended his dissertation yesterday at Rutgers and is at a financial firm
• Nada Petrovic is working on her PhD at UCSB
• Mara Baraban is working on her PhD at Yale

Of course during my time at Bell I had some great managers too

• Peter Littlewood, now head of the Cavindish Lab at Cambridge.
• Don Hamann, now adjunct faculty at Rutgers.
• Cherry Murray now deputy director at Livermore National Lab
• Federico Capasso, now a professor at Harvard
• Dave Bishop. Now CTO of LGS,
• Alice White, now head of North American research for Alcatel-Lucent
• Martin Zirngble, now head of physical sciences research for Alcatel-Lucent

I want to thank them all for their support. Some of these people were truly exceptional managers and they all fought very hard for us in times of painful downsizing.

In addition, the other department heads who I worked closely with were also an exceptional bunch.

• David Tank is a professor of genomics(?) at Princeton
• Pierre Wiltzius is dean of sciences at UCSB
• John Rogers is at the Beckman Institute in Urbana
• Eric Isaacs is now deputy director of sciences at Argonne National Lab
• Dick Slusher is director of the quantum institute at Georgia Tech
• Elsa Reichmanis is a professor of chemistry at Georgia Tech
• Art Ramirez is a research director at LGS
• Susanne Arney remains a department head at Bell Labs
• YK Chen remains a department head at Bell Labs
• John Gates, not sure where he is.

I'd certainly like to thank them all for their help and friendship too. Some of these people were undoubtedly the people I turned to first when things got tough.

Finally there are a bunch of other people who don't fit into any of the above categories because they were outside of my management chain. It was also a pleasure to have scientific (or other) discussions with (and in some cases write papers with) the following people

• Doug Natelson, now a professor of Physics at Rice
• Mark Ericsson, now a professor of Physics at UW Madison
• Don Monroe, now a science journalist
• Paul Citrin, now teaching high school in NJ
• Xing Wei, not sure where he is now
• Claire Gmachl, now a professor of Engineering at Princeton
• Paul Kolodner, still a researcher at Bell
• Joanna Aizenberg, now a professor at Harvard
• Tom Marzetta, still a researcher at Bell
• David Abusch-Magder is the principal of a school in Chicago
  
• Don Tennant, now director of operations of Cornell Nanocenter
• Sivarama Venkatessan, still a researcher at Bell
• Gerry Foschini, still a researcher at Bell
• Tony Novembre, assistant director of Princeton PRISM
• Harold Hwang, professor of Materials at university of Tokyo
• Gabi Ernst, works for Bosch in Stuttgart
• Glen Kowach, now a professor of chemistry at City College of New York
  

I've probably missed at least dozens more in this category. Then I could start in thanking the support staff (who is, as usual, totally unappreciated by most), the higher management, the people in completely different parts of the company, the team in Ireland, the team in the Netherlands, the team in France, the government gang, the IP team, and the list goes on and on. I apologize to those I have not listed by name here.

At any rate, these people (and the many who I did not list by name) were the people at Bell who worked with me, in one way or another, over the last 11 years and made my experience at Bell truly amazing.

Thank you all!