My Colleague Called Me A "Hard Ass"

This is a sanitized and updated version of what I wrote to AE Dreyfuss (of http://www.pltl.org) on 6th December, 2010:

My colleague called me a "hard ass." She said I was too hard. She said I forced students to work too much and solve every assigned problem during (Intro Chemistry) workshops. She said I had no heart (or something like that), that I showed no lenience. She said I rode my workshop leaders hard and made sure they solved every assigned problem, lest they become lenient (she was referring to the time when I was her workshop coordinator).

In my defense, I had the best intentions in mind. I had chosen problems (working with the course' professor) that would expose the students to a range of problems, so that they would be fully equipped with the tools that the course was supposed to confer to them by the time they were done with it. A little lenience, as I saw it, could make a student a friend, but it would result in the students' suffering from a lack of a tool in their belt later down the line. The students' not realizing what tool was missing, or how they were misusing it, would cause them further pains. That is a message I could never get my workshop leaders to understand.

Right now, that workshop leader and I are both grad students in the EE Department. What's more, my first assigned undergraduate helper says he first saw me when I barged into his workshop leader's session (no, his workshop leader was not the one that called me a "hard ass," but he was a student in the same time frame) to give some instructions about some question. When I see how hard working he is, and how much he had to struggle because his workshop leader had been 'nice' and had skipped certain questions -- despite my explicit instructions -- it just makes me mad. A person who works so diligently, and perseveres in the face of extreme academic and work pressures should not have to suffer because his instructor decided to play the nice guy.

Now, here's why I'm writing all this: Do instructors who take the time to cover every aspect of what a student should know, and who try to ensure that their students are well prepared, all end up as people whose colleagues call them a "hard ass?" It bothers me. The instructors with the best lectures in the EE Department are not the most popular graders. The most dreaded math instructor in all of engineering school (and one of the students got up in this full professor's class and called him a "jackass") delivers the best lectures that I have seen anywhere -- and yet, I tremble in fear in his classes; I have been more composed walking along the edge of a rooftop:

In fact, I have been less frightened at gun point (though, that happened a very long time ago) -- and his lectures are a real draw (I'm making a drug reference to illustrate my affinity to his lectures). You see the two extremes that I'm talking about?

What I am wondering is what kind of a person will I become? I now also have a new undergrad, from another college, courtesy of a professor who is also on my research project. When I deal with this student I realize I have developed some of the traits that I used to hate in my professors. Some times I intimidate even my friends when I tell them my attitude towards accomplishing certain tasks: "You do it, you live; else, you die." Some times, I feel like my own father, when he calmly just stood back and watched his son swallowing water, and nearly drowning -- simply for a lack of following simple, extremely explicit instructions. I find that I make certain demands of students, based on their past lecture material (i.e., I expect them to recall material quickly, or to look them up -- repeatedly, if necessary -- and solve problems independently), I expect them to fill in the gaps in their knowledge very quickly (it is a demand I make on myself) and I expect them to apply that knowledge towards the understanding of research papers and advanced concepts, as well as the setup and conduct of experiments. I find that unlike the professor who first trained me to work in a lab, I don't like to wade students into the water, letting them adjust their feet to the cold -- I prefer to just dump my students off the side of a speed boat, to watch them struggle, and to push their heads down into the water if they are not struggling enough (I think this is a remnant of my workshop days, when I was only to ensure that they learned to find their way around problems, so that they could solve them, themselves -- I still insist on never providing solutions). I find that I am harsh, I am cruel, and I give them extremely strict rules.

I find that the more effort that I put into presenting material to my students the more demanding I become of them -- and I think my presentation is not too shabby, because my former students still tell me they learned a lot from me, and (while I was not supposed to do this) I still get compliments for giving clear lectures in the area of quantum chemistry -- the students say that I demystified, whereas their instructors had left them convoluted; in fact, I often found that I could not get them to understand enough to solve a single problem if I did not give that lecture, myself. I tend to feel that I deserve the students' attention, given how much effort I put into the delivery of material (and I treat my professors with the same respect), and I think this is part of the reason that, when it comes to theory, I can be rather demanding.

Of course, my being a what my student from the other college referred to as "Army Major" I am not worried about. Given my bad experiences with ill-advised procedures I do not want my students performing a procedure that could very well detonate like a bomb (which could have happened, but never did, thankfully), nor waterboard themselves (in a sink) to wash toxic chemicals from their eyes, nor strip stark naked to check that they did not spill cancer causing, vitriolic chemicals (by nature, not just by name) on their clothes -- I still remember the horror in the eyes of the guy who witnessed me in the act. The way I see it: If it can kill you, then treat it like it will. There's a reason my friends, in the US Marines, have gun rules like (a) treat a gun as if it is fully loaded and ready to fire, unless you have confirmed otherwise (b) do not point a gun unless you intend to shoot (c) do not put your finger into the guard unless you are ready to shoot, so on, and so forth: mishandling can get people hurt. The same goes with things in my lab: the lasers can blind you -- they can also burn you, as I found out the day I saw a Star Wars style space battle being fought on my hand -- while the chemicals can get you light headed, nauseous, drowsy (take my word for it), and high, and can make you pass out, and they can give you cancer, not to mention take away your (at least a guy's) ability to have kids. Not to mention, some of my chemicals are also volatile, and explosive. So, I think I have ample reason to treat the things in my lab as dangerous items that need to be dealt with with due respect. My student from that other college may not understand (or she may not want to understand), but in order to earn my trust, so that I allow a student to work with something potentially hazardous, that student will need to be able to perform tasks at the drop of a hat (and I mean that very, very literally). I have no problems with allowing a student to perform a procedure that he/she has never done before, as long as (a) the student has been briefed about the dangers and (b) the student is able to follow emergency instructions under duress -- if the student hesitates to wonder what went wrong, or if the student feels a personal affront at a snappy instruction (and thus, hesitates) then that is going to be a big problem. I am not willing to loose a perfectly good batch chemicals (one that will last for months) just because one student did not take the instructions seriously, and suddenly stopped and became gloomy as soon as I told her to stop and to get out of the fume hood (the place where we put our hands, to work with dangerous materials). Nor am I willing to compromise a student's personal safety just because she is not willing to take the risks seriously -- now that I think about it, I wonder why she, as a professional model, is not concerned that her mishandling my chemicals could burn her skin.

I know I can be very rough when it comes to enforcing rules about safety (personal, as well as the equipments' -- and I would rather cut off a students' access to equipment, rather than allow a careless one to handle them, for those things are the tools that I will use to write my thesis, and the professors have placed them under my responsibility; not to mention, I wish to train my successor to use some of them when I graduate).  I have no qualms about screaming and yelling if I see my student in any sort of danger. Sometimes, I act much like a paintball referee, in this regard. Personally, I think I have a severe disdain for fearless people -- happy go lucky people, if you will. I cannot stand it when people do dangerous things without acknowledging the risks. I mean, if a guy wants to jump off a building, the least he should do is come equipped with a proper parachute which he has ample training with. Any idiot can jump off a cliff, but it takes a smart idiot to make it repeatable. I hate it when people act like dumb idiots [my definition of idiot: someone who does it because it feels good; someone who follows the 'id' -- so, technically, all scientists and engineers are very systematic idiots]! I once went skiing with a friend who did not pay much attention to the risks, and nearly got himself, and a little boy, killed while skiing backwards (care free) into the trees. Personally, when I take a friend out, somewhere, I want to bring this person back alive and kicking -- not in a body bag. I'm not sure, but maybe after watching my friend have repeated near misses that evening I developed an extreme intolerance for people disregarding risks (of course, I had been shot with an air rifle when I was a child -- and I did not think I would survive -- so that intolerance could have originated there, only to be bolstered by my skiing experience). So, perhaps it takes very little to set off my short fuse, when it comes to keeping within certain parameters of physical safety -- not that I am in any way keen to change that behavior, but this does add another layer, bolstering my image of being what my colleague called a "hard ass."

So, I am still wondering exactly what kind of a person I will become. I sometimes feel that I am like the old fashioned teacher who greets the student with a tablet of instructions and says something along the lines of "These are the rules. You will learn them. You will live by them. Under my care you will learn the tools that you will need to survive, while you learn to infallibly follow every instruction, under my watchful eye." In fact, when one of my students flouted one of the rules of laser safety I just burst out: "(You know) the rules. You will live by them. You will die for them." Well, I guess I finally let out how I feel about it, for myself. I actually use my personal rules for safety in extreme sports when I work in the lab. I think it works out beautifully -- until someone starts pretending that the risks are not there; and at that point I become anything but friendly.

Do I think that there is room for being friendly? ABSOLUTELY! Just, that it is very important to remember that an instructor is in charge of getting people ready to do certain tasks (be they doing stoichiometry, or aligning laser beams), and letting a passive attitude get in the way is tantamount to failing that friend that one is training. Under most cases, that student that one has failed becomes someone else's problem; but in some cases that student whom one has wronged becomes one's own problem. So, while it may be okay to add a student to one's Facebook, or other social networks (though I refrained from that until the very end of the semester), and (after discussions with the relevant professor) it may be okay to invite students for skiing trips (which I have done), I don't think being a friend amounts to being lenient. Personally, the more I consider a student a friend, the more I want to treat that student the way I treat myself: I become more and more demanding of them (perhaps my optics lab's instructor's attitudes rubbed off on me, as he was a friend, and he rode me very hard, and given how useful I find the things that he taught me, I truly admire his attitude). In fact, when I got the two undergraduate lab course students (some months back) with whom I had the most fun, I personally asked the professor if I could torture my friends (they were my friends since before that class, so I felt free to do whatever I wanted with them) -- and I ended up having a lot of fun churning their brains, since the professor said "Yes!"

Sheltered, high on a purposeful serenity, on a floating barge

I just had a strange and wonderful dream.

I was on a barge, of some sort, monitoring a coastal storm, watching as the ocean blew in large chunks of houses it had pickup up from some place else, crashing them into the large houses on the shore that I was watching.

I was part of a team of old friends, from high school, with a certain tranquil serenity ensuing from a focus on purpose. It felt cozy, sheltered from the rain, spray, and debris, in the ship's large open space, and it felt great -- refreshing -- feeling that cold wind, slowed down, and going through those spaces.

It felt great seeing an old friend, who is recovering from a road accident, out there, in full vigor, and being his usual self (I think his being out of the hospital is the reason I even had the dream). I know I'm not the only one who saw him that way, for another of our high school buddies on that team also noticed that our friend was back in action.

It felt fantastic as we heard the claps of destruction on the shore, as the large debris hit houses on the shore, while we were protected by the ship's structure. From time to time members of the team went to fully sheltered areas, to take breaks, but I was always there, at least audially witnessing the destruction -- I guess I dreamt during my shift.

I heard the wind's howl, and the ocean's roar, and the tremendous claps that accompanied each shore-front house's destruction. There were at least two occasions when I had to take shelter from the resulting debris, for we were, somehow, close to shore.

O, it was reminiscent of those monsoon nights I had enjoyed as a child -- only, much more violent, and I was 'outside.' I saw a big chunk -- a complete set of three adjoining houses -- washed in, from elsewhere, as it raced towards the shore-line, giving my friend and I barely enough time to seek shelter by backing up against the wall of the ship that was closest to shore, as we heard tremendous explosions, and we gingerly tried looking around the corner, trying to glimpse the ensuing destruction. All we had to do was to monitor the storm, and to monitor the destruction, while keeping ourselves alive.

O, the serenity of cold, wet winds, the security of the ship's bulkheads, and that high, that tranquil clarity of mind at pursuing a simple goal, with simple rules.

Volatile and Decentralized: How to get your papers accepted

Volatile and Decentralized: How to get your papers accepted: "Like most faculty, I serve on a lot of conference program committees. I estimate I review O(10^2) papers a year for various conferences and ..."

To Pursue, or Not to Pursue, a PhD

A friend asked me the following:

"Do you honestly enjoy doing your PhD work? How are you managing financially? What about after you are done? How is the job market? Is it very competitive? Do you expect to be paid more than the average Joe working in a company?"

Here is the reply that followed:

Let me put it to you this way: in the summer of 2007 I went for an internship at a company that I really liked, but the kind of job that I wanted required a PhD. Every member of every group that I wanted to join had a PhD. PhD provided the specialized training that they required to even get started on jobs of that type (I interned at a research and development facility). So, when I spoke to them (at their labs, over lunch, while hanging out, etc.) they convinced me to just get a PhD. So, here I am. The company likes me, and they had me intern there again, and they want me to come back (they want someone with my specialization right now, but I don't have my degree, yet), but I have to ride it out until I finish the PhD.

Look, PhD is a specialized kind of training (depends on the field that you are in) that prepares you for certain kinds of job functions (think of it as a highly specialized job training which confers skills with wide applicability). You do it (the PhD) if that is the kind of job that you want (typically, to work in R&D). Otherwise you don't do it. The money is meager, as you have to live on a barely livable stipend (actually, it's not that bad, but I like to go skiing, skydiving, and the like -- I'm a wild man), but it's a means to an end.

I hope you have strong motives if you want a PhD, for otherwise you will get killed by the pain, the trouble, the strive and strife. The respect that our society accords to a PhD is not worth the things that we have to go through -- even the homeless guy has a more enjoyable life. But, the PhD period is transitory, allowing a person to get the kind of job that one likes (assuming the motives and actions were right), and that makes all the troubles, tribulations and frustrations worthwhile.

I cannot tell you that guttural joy of getting something to work, or that sheer ecstasy of figuring something out, but those are things to look forward to in this line of work.

She then said:

"The researchers here have a gleam in their eyes and are so excited and I find this very fascinating. Sometimes I wonder whether my interest in pursuing a PhD is a product of being here in uni. I am not too sure."

My reply (to this, and other posts) was:

That reminds me of a line from the movie, Riddick, where a girl tells Riddick 'I've killed so many people, but I still can't get that look that I see in your eyes...' well, she sounded despairingly exasperated. Look, if you like actually DOING the kind of stuff that that these people do then go for it! If you like simply reading what they have done, but would not like going through the drudgery of actually doing these things, yourself, then you might have a few things to figure out.

It's like this: my professors like to watch people jumping out of airplanes from the comfort of their seats, but would not like jumping out of an airplane, themselves -- I, on the other hand, like to jump out of an airplane. Now, you don't need me to tell you which one of us (between one of my professors and myself) needs to go to school and get a skydiver's license, do you? ;)

Personally, I was never too big a fan of the kind of experiments that I have been doing -- until I started understanding what the hell was going on (trust me, I would start cursing if I even tried to show you the full extent of how I feel). You see, I like figuring things out. My mentality was cut out more for being a physicist, than an engineer -- the two groups feel a different kind of "Aha moment" from their work (physicists feel a more subtle, more sublime, but longer lasting sigh of the chest, while engineers feel a more gutteral, more intense, but shorter lasting moment of satisfaction; but both groups feel 'high' when it happens). So, while I had my gripes, and my deep seated despairs, agonies, misgivings and regrets, I finally found my satisfaction when I took the initiative to understand the physics of what I was doing, and how I could use that physics to engineer the devices that I am to be making (I can engineer what physics happens in my devices, if you will) -- an initiative that paid off at last Friday's presentation, which my professors were very satisfied with (I think I now finally understand why my group's work is called 'applied physics,' rather than simply engineering).

So, given my better understanding, I am now quite happy, and I now finally feel that I am getting what I signed up for when I started with my PhD. This has been the longest 'down' in the ups and downs of the PhD process -- for me, anyway. Now, I feel that I am doing what I like -- I am figuring things out, and then implementing my understanding for a practical purpose. I used to see experimentation as a necessary evil to justify the theoretical work that I do (spending 7 hours doing a boring experiment is still a pain in the ass -- and I know a pain in the ass, for Mr. Yusuf Shareef used to cane me there), but I don't want to be a pure theoretician (I like 'working with my hands,' if you will, and I like to bring forth the fruits of my cerebral work, rather than limit myself, and have somebody else do the work that makes my theoretical work USEFUL to society), and I actually enjoy working with lasers and optics, and I derive tremendous pleasure out of working my systems under very tight parameters (my philosophy is 'always enjoy a tight squeeze,' and I follow that philosophy whether I am working, or skiing), and now (with my better understanding) I see the experimental work that I am doing as actually being relevant to my interests and actually being aligned with what I get joy out of.

So, if you misunderstand what the work of your professor entails, or if your PhD advisor's work does not align very well with your interests, then you could be in for a VERY SAD Life. When I started I used to think that I should simply like the end result of the kind of work that I will be doing (rather than the long periods of doing the actual work) in order to be successful as a PhD student, but the fact is, seeing something accomplished lasts a very short time, and you soon have to move on to the next step; on top of that, I cannot truly enjoy an accomplishment too well, for when my professor started clapping the day I finally was able to make high quality transparent optical quality films for my solar cells I actually squirmed inside, I felt extremely embarrassed, and I did not like it at all -- I later told a friend that I much prefer being grilled at the meetings and I am telling you that instead of facing so much compliments I would rather jump out the window; I think I do not handle compliments too well. So, it is VITALLY important that you like the journey, rather than the final destination, in order to be successful as a PhD student.

If you like Sharjah (and say you live in Dubai, United Arab Emirates), for example, you can take bus (i.e., if you like the final destination), but only if you like the act of taking journey will you take a backpack (with supplies, like water, some food, etc.) and actually walk the route, enjoying the breeze, the walk, and the sights (bad example, I know -- the desert is too hot -- but I hope you see my point). The PhD is like the journey, and you will not spend much time in Sharjah, once you get there, and you will just keep hiking/walking to the next destination. So, you should only pursue the PhD if you like taking the journey. Of course, for any PhD work it is important to know what is the destination, and what is the journey :)

O, and I must warn you of the PhD jokes, for there is a lot of truth to them. Besides the corny ones that I came up with (the ones on my BLOG, that I linked you to, earlier), there are ones like: "A PhD student should be poor, hungry, and lonely, so that he/she can spend his/her nights alone, to think." Of course, here is the United States, statistically, you are more likely to complete the PhD if you are married, rather than single -- don't ask me why, because neither I, nor my professor who told me this, can explain it.

So, there you go. Now you can better evaluate your motives for doing a PhD. The decision is a very personal journey, and telling a person about why one chooses to do it, or to not do it can feel very intimate and personal, and can make one feel being very wide open; but I would appreciate your letting me in. While the factors influencing the decision may be personal, they are certainly not the kind of personal stuff that one cannot talk to a friend about. In my case, I don't make any effort to hide them, at all. Sure, you are the first to know some of the stuff that I have written above (and, yes, I was looking for someone to talk to) but I have spoken about this stuff before with a lady who took my psychological profile (she studies the learning process in adults). In any case, knowing what factors influence you, and in what way, I would be better equipped to help the next person who asks me whether or not he/she should pursue a PhD.

BTW, have you ever heard of Shangri La? I once saw an episode about it on a show called "Lonely Planet" (also known as "Globe Trekker," and the theme is enclosed). It is a mythical city in the Himalayan Mountains where everything feels great. The show failed to find it (it is mythical, afterall), but when they found the ruins of a different city, by following the legends, they found something truly mythical. I felt elated, myself, when I saw just the video of what the show's travelers were seeing. Sure, it wasn't what was described in the myths, but when you see so much beauty, so much tranquility, such wide expanses surrounding a beautiful city, you cannot help but feel a sigh of relief, a joy that I cannot describe, an inner peace the like of which I had not experienced in a while, and I have not experienced since , you suddenly all the pains, all the troubles, all the inner strife, and all those feelings that you get while you strive fade away, and it is as if you are feeling a different version of the runner's high (to put it very, very lightly). When I saw that city on a high plateau, surrounded by hills (hence, making the place unreachable), approachable by a sandy beach from one side, and a shallow lake on the other, I could not help but feel an inner peace.

I think that is what you saw in your researchers' eyes. I think that is the reason for their eyes' gleam. I think they found their Shangri La, after traveling through vales and hills.

I once told a friend:
"Love is when you are willing to pursue the object of your love; to get to know better that object of your desire; to be willing to go hither and thither, near and far, over mounts and vales, ever inching closer, even in the face of going further and further, all in the name of appreciating what you are so willing to fulfill in terms of its wishes and desires; love is being able to think what is better for that someone, not just yourself; but love can also be possessive desire."

Well, I think they have found their Shangri La after all their ups and downs and despite the satisfaction of their perhaps possessive desire it (the look of that, rather selfish, satisfaction) is overcome by the process, that pursuit of that desire, to the point that now you only see the satisfied gleam, that inner tranquility, that fulfillment that no one can take away. It is a satisfaction that I am lost for words for, and it is indeed something worthy of desire -- it is worthy of years and years of pursuit, and it is perhaps worthy of a lifetime of pursuit, and it is worthy of pursuit from one goal to another -- for when you find it out to accomplishing one goal, and you bask in the glory of a private celebration, it is worthy of pursuing again, and again, and again. Simply writing this, I feel a certain satisfaction of that desire, for right now I am reliving that moment again, when I saw that episode of Lonely Planet. I could go on and on, but I am sure, by now, you know what I mean by the worthy pursuit of an all but elusive desire.



The true Shangri La, that tranquil oasis town in the midst of the dry mountains, far from civilization, and to get to which you have to cross wild terrain, still eludes me. It's like my happiness is 'over the hills and far away.' I am still out in the cold, cold, morn, feeling the tingling in a metal rod. Ever inching, closer and closer, not knowing how much more I will have to wither. I have come to love that tingling sound in a hollow metal rod, a rod like those railings that bridges have got. It's like every sound is an intimate moment; pressed against my cheeks I savor, and to myself I comment. I've come to love what is cold, what is forbidding, and what takes one away from pleasures a society considers innocent. I have lived for 8 years away from family, away from intimate contact, away from feeling open. Now, to block these needs it's as if my adrenals have swollen. An angry man, a wild man, a kind of beast, a man of the mountains, a talkative one, but a mountain man, nevertheless, I have become. Like Odysseus, who could not stay with his wife, and had to return to sea, having spent 10 years getting home from it, I may very well one day take off, take to the skies, and fly off. Sure, I may land over hills and vales, and while Shangri La I may not even seek, but may find en route, when least expected, I am sure from my adventures I will have many tales.




That was just me sounding off some of my deepest thoughts, some deep seated regrets, some deeply harbored desires. I hope you shall never burn in such kind of fire

Good luck with your endeavors. :)

~Faissal

To Take On The Extreme

There is an extreme side of me that I always try to control. In fact, Islam IS my moderating influence, for it keeps me from requiring others to keep things as simple as I would like things to be.

I have an extreme side, and I try to keep it away from my religion, for Islam is a path that is some sort of medium path -- one that is not leaning towards either extreme (a moderate path that leans towards neither lax flexibility nor towards morbid rigidity). That is why I gravitate towards activities that allow me to channel my extreme side in positive ways (as my high school Physics Teacher used to say: "Constructive, not destructive!"): laser alignment work (and the like), background reading, and designing experiments for research are very demanding, and allow me to be extreme and be useful to human kind, as I think Allah wants us to be, and skiing (and the like) allows me to be extremely demanding on myself while doing something personally fulfilling.

The way I see it, some people are just born extreme, and it is their duty, and their lifetime challenge to be useful (I don't think Islam encourages us to live as hermits, so I take it that we have to live in society and be useful) and to either tame their inner extremism, or to simply channel it in a useful manner -- well, that is just my take on it.

Will We ReWrite Science Fiction? Or, When Will We, About Crystals and Polymers?

I've been watching Star Trek (various incarnations), Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis (I won't insult these shows by including them in the same pack as Stargate Universe, eventhough I liked Dr. Rush), and now I am watching Babylon 5, and what I consistently see in these shows is that information (from computer programming instructions, as in the various Stargate series, to information media, to messages, as in Babylon 5, for example) -- and even energy (as in Star Trek's Lithium crystals for the ship's engines) -- is stored in crystals. Now, all that is great, but all that also feels ancient (no pun intended about the Ancients from the Stargate series), in that these shows indicate yester-years' infatuation with crystal technology, from back when the transistor was invented, since that invention was followed by tremendous technological development that almost entirely depended on the use of crystals to control the flow of electrons (and holes) for the various purposes of information technology.

Some time since the invention of the transistor, however, humankind has come up with using various organic technologies: technologies that have led to the development of organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) and other devices that are grown from organic materials. Even photonic materials and photonic crystals can me made (at least partially) using organic materials. Sure, devices made with organic materials need hermetic sealing to prevent their degradation, and they tend to have lower damage thresholds than crystalline material technologies, but they also have the advantages (like lower power consumption in OLEDs) that entice researchers to develop their uses further and further. Far more importantly, of course, organic materials have the advantage that devices can be grown using molecular self assembly, opening up possibilities for engineering materials and devices with tremendous versatility. I, for example, make quantum dots (yes, they are crystalline, inorganic quantum dots, but bear with) that are spherical only because they are grown inside organic chambers: not only do organic materials provide growing chambers that are easily controlled (and difficult, at best, to produce otherwise) but they allow for the molding of the external extent of my quantum dot crystals. Back when I was working on OLEDs, to give another example, I found a paper whose authors used organic chemistry to deposit a single layer of molecules at the interface between two OLED layers. Now, that level of control over how a device is made -- down at the molecular level -- is something of a holy grail of materials and devices engineering, and a dream of researchers worldwide. I remember a piece of science fiction in which this dream is mentioned: in one of the clips from the computer game 'Alpha Centauri' there is mention of a material that acts as a nano factory that grows battle tanks if left alone. I do not remember that clip mentioning organic technology, however, and I have not seen organic technology being widely prevalent in science fiction.

Sure, I have observed the mention of organic materials (polymers, in this case) in the computer game 'Deus Ex,' but even that was a bit dissatisfying in that the game mentioned organic materials in the contexts of locks, medicines (though the game's concept of the 'Ambrosia' vaccine is reminiscent of how I use organic materials to make quantum dots), and biomedical engineering: my gripe is that even this game did not mention the tremendous possibilities that organic technologies open up for my field of electronic and photonic materials and devices. The only piece of fiction where I found anything satisfying, in this regard, is the mention of organic matrices being used as high density memory devices (computer storage) in the fan made mod of Deus Ex, called 'Zodiac.' That is a singular case, however, and I am yet to see the possibilities that organic materials and devices can render to information technology being expounded in a major TV show.

I can understand that Babylon 5 came out perhaps thirty years after the invention of the transistor, and so it might be another thirty years before organic technologies are talked about in a science fiction show, but I think that that would be very limiting, as by then the scientific community might be working on something else (don't ask me what that something else might even be). Personally, I would rather that the science fiction writers write shows that talk about what is being developed now, since their shows may very well influence the career choices that their younger audiences make. I don't want the kids growing up thirty years from now getting into college, all excited by the possibilities of developing OLEDs, only to find that their Dads saw OLEDs at Times Square (in New York) when they were young. Sure, the information technology aspects of crystalline technologies being shown on the modern sci-fi shows are still nowhere completion, but if you are going to influence the kids, it might be nicer to give them something that they can look forward to in the foreseeable future.

Wouldn't it be nice to get the kids interested in molecular self assembly, organic electronic and photonic devices, and the like so that the kids can look forward to these things when they start college? I certainly think it would broaden their horizons more than if the major sci-fi shows stayed fixated on crystal based technologies. Just a thought.

~Faissal

600 Feet!

I played navigator to a friend, while driving today. I had to be most alert during the short stretches that led to turns. I noticed that the GPS reported distances a bit after they had been reduced. At one point the GPS system (we used a Tomtom system, which we like very much) chimed '900 feet,' after we had passed the point where the display had said '900 feet.' Just to throw in some numbers, I guestimated (i.e., I estimated the distance, though it was more of a guess) that we had passed a little under one-third of the distance in question by the time that the GPS system chimed in. So, just for simplicity, I guessed that by the time I heard the chime we had about 600 feet before the next turn.

Well, guess what? We weren't going fast (certainly not fast, by free fall -- skydiving -- standards), but we crossed those 600 feet incredibly fast! At that point I wondered how Mr. Jevto Dedijger might have felt, looking down at the ground from the Kockertalbrucke Bridge (pardon my spelling -- I do not have his book, "BASE 66," here with me), near Heidelberg, Germany, right before his 'S' jump in BASE.

Okay, okay, the whole point of my exercise was to get a feel for how he might have felt, but I got more than I had bargained for; for when we whizzed through that distance I was left with a knot in my stomach as I tried to fathom how much discipline Mr. Dedijer must have had to pull his rip cord during the jump. It was quite scary, and I cannot truly imagine that morbid feeling of watching the ground rushing up faster and faster, to meet you, eventhough I have watched the ground rush up when I jumped off an 8 feet high wall, and when I put my parachute into a tight spiral during my first (and so far, my only) skydive.