Maurer/Stier 2012 Annual Letter
smaurer1@swarthmore.edu http://www.swarthmore.edu/NatSci/smaurer1/
franstier@comcast.net http://burbaldiaries.blogspot.com/
leon.maurer@gmail.com https://mywebspace.wisc.edu/lnmaurer/web/
ajmaurer89@gmail.com
206 Benjamin West Ave
Swarthmore PA 19081-1421
December 31, 2012 (aka Jan 20, 2013)
Note: Fran and Leon had their sections ready by Jan 1.
The delay is due to Steve.
Fran writes:
Executive Summary: At the 2011’s annual, Aaron had
started work in San Francisco, Steve was headed for 3
months in Germany, Leon was headed to WI to start with
a new research group, and I was going to Japan for a
couple of weeks. Executive summary of 2012 would be:
Steve loved his year of leave and is now back teaching,
Leon’s new research group worked well and he’s passed
his prelims, Aaron has been thriving in SF, and Japan was
great, however, Fran’s work-year has been challenging.
We all did an Eastern European roots trip with Steve’s
brothers in August, and the year ended sadly with the
death my step-father, Sid.
(As usual, travel-log and pictures available in
burbaldiaries.blogspot.com )
Aaron continues working at Acumen on health care
policy – on statistical studies of flu vaccine and (later in
the year) on implementation options for the Affordable
Care Act. For every weekend I worked, he worked two.
One of the principals in the group was a night-owl, so for
a while in October his workday speeded up at 8 PM, and
we were getting phone calls from him as he wound down
at 5 AM West Coast time (8 AM EST).
I got to SF in July, met his girlfriend, toured wine country
for a day with them, shopped, ate, walked and had a
wonderful time.
He and Steve had a huge correspondence about his 2011
residence, for tax purposes (was he ever a PA resident, or
just MN & CA?) . He bought our old Subaru from us in
May and got his own auto insurance (again, accompanied
by long emails with Steve about policy provisions). He
studied the SF and CA voter guides with gusto and had
long discussions with Steve about ballot propositions.
Below are some of his memories of Sid:
One of my fondest memories is when he decided to
take me to a Yankees game. We went along with
Charlie. He wasn't that mobile at that point, so it took
a fair bit of work, but once we got to the game and got
settled, he regaled me with the nuances of the game
and the various highlights of his many decades of
fandom.
The last time I saw him, earlier this year when I visited
him on the end of a business trip, we watched the
Giants win a rather exciting, if poorly played, game
versus Tampa Bay together. Sid's been a fan of all
things New York sports for all of his life, so he was
rooting for the Giants. Being from Philadelphia, I'm an
Eagles fan, so it was all I could do to tactfully not root
against them. On Wednesday, I was considering
packing an Eagles jersey I just got so I could wear it
during the Eagles-Giants game this Sunday. It seemed
a bit soon to make him roll over in his grave though, so
I decided against it.
Sid always enjoyed colorful language. When I last
visited him, telling him about my life post college, he
was clearly really happy for me. I think the way he
described it was that I was living it up like a "pig in
shit".
Leon ‘s year was busy and productive– he TA’d the intro
course for physics majors for spring semester,
constructed a program to teach Interference and
Diffraction, and published a paper on it. In his main
research, he inherited filthy code in an ancient version of
Fortran, debugged it and updated it and got results that
got him his prelim, so he’s now a dissertator.
Most of his relaxation involved bicycling (e.g. a 100 mile
trip one summer Sunday among 5 breweries), gardening,
or LAN parties with a friend from kindergarten (now in
math grad school at U Chi):
Leon went to Chicago for a LAN party – killed Robin
several times in the course of the evening, but they’re
still friends. They played till maybe 4 AM, then packed
up & went back to Robin’s place. Mrs. Stambaugh (L’s
calculus teacher in HS) emailed to ask how was L and
did he keep in touch w/ HS friends, and L replied that
at that very minute he was sitting opposite Robin,
trying to kill him.
I’m not the only mother of a physics grad student
worried about (limited) social life:
There was a Holiday Colloquium – production values
on some skits not that great, but good material, opined
Leon. After the colloquium (as they ate pizza & drank
beer), he talked with a post-doc working for X, whose
Mom has taken to contacting undergrads on his behalf,
or forwarding their contact info to him, trying to
Maurer-Stier Annual 2012, page 2
improve his social life. A grad student from China
chimed in that she was glad her Mom didn’t know
English.
On the upside, my colleagues are bright and supportive –
most days, I’m eager to get into work and start pushing
my boulder.
Leon decided that in the scheme of things, I wasn’t
that badly behaved.
Coop, Social Action The coop moved out of its store in
August – it’s trying to continue as a buying club, but I’ve
pulled back and will stop serving as treasurer later in
2013.
His eulogy for Sid is posted here.
Steve had a wonderful time at ECLA (European College of
the Liberal Arts -- in Berlin), teaching and travelling on
trains whenever he could. He returned in time for Seder
(and taxes). We met in Barcelona for a weekend in
February (the provincial museum has a wonderful
Romanesque collection). He coordinated a Roots trip
through Ukraine and Poland – more below. Now he’s
back teaching at Swarthmore. However, not all his news
is good (see below).
For our 30th anniversary, we went back to Greenwood
Lake (between NY & NJ), and hiked more or less the trails
we met on. After a couple of miles I was pretty sore
(and I try to stay active--Steve was in much better shape
than me)-- the light through the trees was beautiful.
Grateful to still be here.
Work I did do work in Japan – just being able to talk
with people in person, rather than over conference calls
was useful, but what I’ll remember most were Kyoto and
Kamakura. The Monday we arrived was a holiday and I
scurried off to Kamakura to see the Daibutsu [the great
Buddha] (armed with slips of paper for the different local
trains I needed to take, written in Japanese by a helpful
concierge)—I got there just at sunset—and stood there
taking picture after picture, trying to soak in its mass and
peacefulness. I spent a weekend in Kyoto, and walked
the philosopher’s path. I told friends I’d emerge from the
path a calm, serene person (they all gave me skeptical
looks).
Society of Actuaries’ management has been pushing us
for years to improve our networking and communication
skills – to be more outgoing. This year, however, they
seem to have thrown in the towel. One of the actuaries’
annual meeting talks was about the power of introverts –
the speaker was taken aback that 90% of us identified
ourselves that way, and sold out copies of her book.
The low interest rate environment has been hard for
insurance companies – we’re not the only one cutting
expenses and reducing staff. There was a company-wide
reorganization and a lot of uncertainty about where we
figured in organizational charts–there’ve been a bunch of
staff reductions. We all worry where cuts will fall. Of
course, our company’s not unique.
[A friend’s] sister & brother-in-law both work for X.
Couple of weeks ago, on the same day, both were told
they were being let go in a month. We bustle about
and worry and one day it’s all over.
I continue as social action chair at Ohev – thanks to the
families at the synagogue who’ve talking on so many
mitzvot, year after year. We continue serving dinners at
the Life Center, holding multiple food drives, bringing
books , and collecting money so the kids at the shelter
have swimsuits in summer and warm pj’s in winter.
Roots: For 2 weeks in August our family of 4, Steve’s
brothers and some of their family visited the villages that
Stiers, Maurers, Greenmans, and Reisners came from.
There were 8 of us, with separate arrival and departure
dates, and then there was the guide and the driver and
his van for the first part and cars we rented for the
second part. Steve and his brothers arranged this
through hundreds of emails and dozens of Excel
spreadsheets. Russ’s trip report is here (it’s a pdf; takes
a while to download).
We visited Roztoky, a little village strung out along the
river Cheremosh (where my paternal grandfather came
from) with a memorial to the Jews shot on a hillside on
July 5th, 1941. We talked to the oldest man in the village:
He was born in the highlands; his parents were killed
by Ukrainian National forces (Bandera), and then he
spent 1947-53 in the Gulag. He came back to the
village, found a woman w/ a child, and built the house
he still lives in.
We visited Wiznitz, that had the nearest Jewish
cemetery to Roztoky
Wiznitz cemetery …very beautiful, in a wistful kind of
way. Headstones (matzevot) leaning every which way.
The decoration at the top would show braided
candlesticks with blessing hands for women, blessing
hands for Cohanim. Animals that looked to me like
guinea pigs for men – not sure what they were
supposed to be. Women’s epitaphs almost always
started,” here lies the modest, honest, woman” and
men’s epitaphs started, “here lies the wholehearted,
upright man”. Very few names I could pick out. All
epitaphs ended with the first letters of Samuel I 25:29
“may his soul be bound up in the bonds of life”.
We visited Lezajsk and Przeworsk (where my Mom’s
Father’s family came from)—very little remained of the
Lezajsk cemetery, while the Przeworsk cemetery was
now a bus station, with a small, low memorial in the
corner.
Maurer-Stier Annual 2012, page 3
I’d printed out some guides to deciphering Hebrew
tombstones, but in fact couldn’t make out anything
beyond the first few words and the last letters.
We travelled in a white van
fitted with 3 seats in front (Caroline sits there, being
the thinnest), two middle seats (prime real estate) …
The three rear seats bounce a lot and have no seat
belts. The bouncing matters because the roads in
Ukraine are rutted (deep holes) or, if they’re just
uneven, Alexi (aged 23, an unemployed comp sci
graduate) is driving 100 kph. The roads are 2 lane,
often nec to pass – it talks a while to get used to
tearing down the left hand side of the road.
Our trip centered on a commemoration of the 70th
anniversary of the annihilation of the Jewish community
of Biecz – it’s one thing to hear about 6,000,000 deaths;
it’s another to hear about a couple dozen people known
to the narrator.
Ira (organizer of the commemoration) read from an
account of the 80 people shot by the Germans in the
months leading up to the community’s annihilation –
some shot at 3 AM in bed. Literally, people went to
sleep not knowing if they’d be alive in the AM.
How he was sitting in his grandmother’s house on
Shabbat and the Germans came in, took out a relative
and shot him in the hall. How a school friend of his
was shot in those days.
I’m so grateful my grandparents & great-grandparents
emigrated.
Election I was obsessed, of course, continually looking
for updates on FiveThirtyEight, wearing a Hebrew Obama
campaign pin for months (Steve was calmer but he was
the one who volunteered as a poll-watcher), and very
glad for the outcome.
Sid died Christmas Eve, aged 91. He was so at ease with
people and with himself. We all loved his stories – we’ll
all miss him.
Frannie’s conclusion: A Better Chance does a fundraiser
selling luminaria in Swarthmore every New Years – very
successfully—almost every house in almost every street
is lined with light by 5 PM on Jan 1st. Steve and I never
get ours out soon enough in the day, and almost always
find ourselves fumbling with matches and swearing at
dropped wicks at the last minute. But once the lights
are lit, it’s so beautiful to walk up and down the streets
looking at the lights.
Hoping your year is healthy and peaceful.
Steve writes:
ECLA. I was first there fall 2007. I returned for JanMarch 2012, this time living in an apartment above
their cafeteria. Officially I again taught one course, but
I was less busy this time because I took fewer courses
(no German course). I did participate in an optional
student-faculty seminar reading Euclid and ended up
running it. I probably should be embarrassed to say I
had never read more than snippets of Euclid before. It
was really quite interesting. Clearly a masterly
organization. In some ways quite modern, and in
others not at all.
Because I wasn’t so busy, I traveled every weekend,
either around Berlin or over half of Germany on the
wonderful dense German rail network, which has lots
of price cutting options. I love that most tickets are
good on any train of the class you paid for or lower,
and that most routes run hourly. Wherever I went, I
stayed as long as I wanted and then I wouldn’t have to
wait long for a train to the next place. I was a happy
camper. Their website is great too, for planning out
complicated trips.
Let me mention just 2 of many wonderful sights
1. The Hamburg main train station. Some people
think this is a gloomy black cavern, but I found it
inspiring both inside and out. Because all trains
use the same level, a train comes or goes every 2
or 3 minutes. Berlin is more populous and has
more trains, but the main station there has 2
levels.
2. The Erfurt treasure. In correct anticipation of a
pogrom in 1349, a rich Jew buried his family
treasures. He must have buried it quite well,
because after the pogrom the town council asked
citizens to go digging for just such treasures. It
was only found, by accident, during some
construction in 1998 (649 years later!), and it
was so tightly sealed in a canister that, when
opened, it looked almost new. Brooches, hairpins,
coins, and the most amazing gold wedding ring,
2” high, with tiny Hebrew letters saying Mazel
Tov. See http://altesynagoge.erfurt.de/jle/de
/altesynagoge/ausstellung/
All this stunning collection is housed in the oldest
standing synagogue building in northern Europe
– not burned down by the Nazis because it had
long ceased to be a synagogue, indeed, it had
been forgotten that it had been a synagogue. But
now it, and several other Jewish buildings of old
Erfurt, have been restored (e.g., a mikva). By the
way, a few years after 1349 the town council
invited the Jews back – even built them new
housing – and they came back.
MathPath. For the first time we reached 100 students,
which I think will be our steady state. Our students
and parents gave us our best ratings ever and I am
quite pleased with what we have accomplished. But
Maurer-Stier Annual 2012, page 4
each step of growth is more work to manage it, all year
round. As with a family business, there is really no
time off.
Roots Trip. Fran has described this pretty well,
especially if you consult all her links. I’ll just add a few
thoughts.
 It was the most complicated trip I have ever
planned. It was amazing that we got an excellent
guide and pulled it all off, given how late I started
planning it (the real planning only started 10
weeks before, when an earlier general plan fell
through).
 To me just walking the towns of my ancestors
meant something. There were middle sized towns
and tiny villages.
 It was stunning to see the difference in
development between Ukraine and Poland. We
could see it as soon as we crossed the border into
Poland – much better paved roads, nicer houses.
Communist control ended about the same time in
both places. I guess the decisions a country makes
can make a difference. (It helps that Poland is in
the EU, which supplies development funds.)
 As always (in Germany too) I am particularly
moved by Holocaust sites. Biecz (Beitch) Poland
was my father’s father’s town, from which he
emigrated around 1900. Our leader there, Ira
Goetz, was one of 3 Jews to escape the deportation
of all Jews in 1942 to death camps that we came to
commemorate. How did he do it? The town
square of Beitch is on a steep embankment, maybe
100 ft high, over looking the river Ropa. There is
a small level strip next to the river, on which a
single-track rail line ran and runs. There are
certain small caves (hollows really) in the
embankment. Ira ran to the embankment and hid
in one of these caves. Of course, the SS weren’t
dumb. They stationed guards at the top of the
embankment, guards on the tracks below, and had
men with dogs walk through the embankment,
and then just waited. Do you know the scene in
Schindler’s List where an apartment building is
evicted and some kids hide in a sewer area,
lodging themselves in the top so they wouldn’t be
seen if a solider bent down to look. I think Ira said
he lodged himself in the top of the hollow.
Anyway, early one morning, with no one around, I
went to this area, climbed up and down the
embankment, and then stood for a long time on
the railroad tracks, imagining SS men with
machine guns every 50 meters. I think I saw a
scene like that once in Burt Lancaster’s The Train.
Fall in Swarthmore. I was on leave last academic year.
This fall I returned to full-time teaching (5 semester
courses a year) for the first time in over 10 years. I
had been chair from summer 2003 until my leave, and
an associate provost for several years before that,
giving me course releases. My new chair helped me
ease the transition by giving me my 2-course load in
the fall; I will have almost 3 times as many students in
the spring.
Was full time a rude shock? No, but to my surprise I
was busier than ever. I thought, no longer being chair,
I would be much less busy. Why not? Partly it took a
while to refamiliarize myself with the material. (I did
my 2 favorite courses, a linear algebra seminar and
discrete math, both of which I had individualized.)
Partly, I had a big new college committee assignment,
the IRB (Institutional Review Board, federally
mandated to screen for abuses in human subjects
research – in principle a most ethical thing to do but
practically an awful time sink). Partly this year there
are special department projects we all have to share in
– writing a lengthy self-study for an outside review,
and reading 500 folders (well, some of them) for an
unanticipated hire. Partly MathPath takes all the spare
time that I don’t have. Partly, I still have other
commitments, like editing a Math Association book
series. And partly I think I have slowed down, or at
least don’t respond effectively to pressure the way I
used to. I can’t multitask on several big projects at
once. So I can’t start on B because I haven’t finished A.
But I can’t start on A because I haven’t finished B.
Further, I no longer wake up thinking first thing how I
want to teach my classes, the way I used to. Indeed,
some things about teaching (or grading papers) I find
myself putting off to the last moment.
Swarthmore lets you retire in stages, 3 years of
teaching part time as you see fit. I think next school
year will be my last full-time year.
Health. Two serious medical conditions arose this
year.
Prostate trouble. For several years I have been making
regular visits to a urologist for slowly rising PSA. After
the first large jump (to around 4) I had a biopsy back
in 2007. I had no cancer (or maybe the 10 samples
missed it, my internist told me cheerfully). My PSA
thereafter went up and down and only gradually up,
until this March it jumped to 6.6. Time for another
biopsy my urologist said (or rather, my new urologist,
as the practice of the old one was having a war with
Blue Cross, so Blue Cross refused to pay). I had this
2nd biopsy in late August after MathPath and Roots. I
fully expected it to show cancer this time. The
urologist wouldn’t tell me the results over the phone.
But no, I was clean again. I had dodged another bullet.
Maurer-Stier Annual 2012, page 5
By the way, it is now debatable one should have these
biopsies. A big multiyear study has come out
comparing men at the same PSA levels who have
prostate surgery and those that don’t. Not only is life
expectancy about the same, but even the occurrence of
prostate cancer is about the same! See
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/23/choosing
-watchful-waiting-for-prostate-cancer/ and
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1113
162. These biopsies are not fun and take a few months
for full recovery of your functions. One of my brothers
refuses to have the PSA tests, because he refused to
have the biopsies or prostate surgery. But this year,
already having the PSA results, I wanted to know
more. I might refuse further biopsies.
Tremors. I reported last year that my left arm shakes
when I hold things. The rule of thumb is that shaking
when holding things is benign and not uncommon
with age; it is shaking at rest that is of concern. Well,
this year my left arm started to shake when held still,
and sometimes my left leg. Now my doctor was
interested and this fall I went to a movement disorders
neurology specialist. His conclusion: I have
Parkinson’s. My bullet-dodging days were over. (It
had been possible that my tremors were still benign
with “Parkinsonian symptoms”, but the neurologist
said no; rather, the earlier tremors when holding
things were actually a form of Parkinson’s.)
Of course, Fran and I have now done a lot of reading.
Parkinson’s is an inexorable progressive disease.
While it is often slow, if you live long enough – if age or
other illness doesn’t kill you first – you become a
physical basket case, and in many instances, towards
the end a mental basket case too.
Fran was quite upset at first. She has always regarded
me as a hypochondriac because I have always talked
with her about my medical conditions and what they
might mean. (I think it’s a family difference; my family
always talked about medical matters and her family
didn’t.) So she has typically pooh-poohed any medical
condition I mentioned. But now she couldn’t. I smiled
and said, “Just because I am a hypochondriac doesn’t
mean I can’t be sick.” She laughed and relaxed.
There is some good news. Great progress has been
made in medications that alleviate Parkinson
symptoms; they can mostly be masked for 1 to 10
years, depending on the patient. There are even some
medications that may slow down the underlying
degeneration (your brain produces less and less
dopamine, and eventually forms Lewy bodies) and
medications under development may slow it with
certainty. Furthermore, so far mine is a mild case, and
the neurologist's gut feeling (based on his 30 years of
cases) is that it will progress slowly. When I said I
might like to teach at least part time for up to 5 more
years, he said he doubted the disease will make me
retire sooner than I want. I asked about planning for
the time when I can't drive and can't navigate our 3story house. He said it is too early to plan for that;
such developments may be 10-15 years off. But he
also cautioned, “So far I have just one data point.”
For now I have started taking a medication that, in
theory, should slow down the degeneration but has
little effect on symptoms. As the doctor noted, “Of
course, you’ll never know whether it actually worked
or not.”
I am somewhat surprised by my calm perspective on
my future. People don’t usually know very far in
advance how they will die. Final illnesses often last a
month to a year. Well, my mother’s final illness (a
brain tumor) was, what, 5 years, but because her sort
of tumor can usually be removed with success, it was
maybe only the last 2 years that she/we knew her fate.
On the other extreme was my father, who died
suddenly, at age 84, at his desk in the State Dept. I
think he would be pleased to think that he died with
his boots on.
But I have been given an unusually long sentence. I
know years and years in advance what is going to
happen to me. It’s a strange feeling. Just like financial
markets, which discount far future events, perhaps I
have discounted my unpleasant future too much. Or
maybe, precisely because the prospects are so far out,
I am mistaken to think I have been told the future,
because so much could happen in between.
Fran made this point: our family has had good fortune
so far. We shouldn’t complain about a rough ending.
And she is the one who will likely have to take care of
me; given how long her mother’s family lives, she will
probably outlive me.
As you have read, Fran’s stepfather Sid died just
before Christmas, at age 91. At the funeral, the rabbi
remarked that Sid had told him, I have done
everything I wanted to do. That’s a satisfying thought
at first, but can it really be true of anyone? Have I, or
will I, do everything I want to do?
Similarly, Fran once said to me, some time ago: I have
had two sons; I have fulfilled my biological purpose.
That too struck me as odd.
So let’s start with our sons. We have indeed raised
them. They are off on their own now, and they are
skilled, employable, decent people. I was so impressed
by the thoughtful remarks they wrote for Sid’s funeral
,wise beyond their years (and linked by Fran above).
But while they are independent, I think as parents we
Maurer-Stier Annual 2012, page 6
can say our job is not done. Leon is not out of grad
school, and Aaron has to decide if he wants to go to
grad school. They are not settled in permanent
careers. They are not married – well let me be more
open-minded about that and say they have not
determined their steady-state lifestyle and whether
this will involve a life-partner. Fran would say, what
about grandchildren?
As for professional work, I have mostly done what I
wanted to do. I wrote the books I wanted to write. I
have developed the courses I wanted to develop. I am
not as intrigued as I once was about learning or
discovering new math. The main professional thing
left to do is get MathPath on a permanent footing. It is
financially stable now, but it needs a next generation
of managers and a better legal footing. I am working
on that, but it will take a few more years.
But surely, even if at some point I really have done my
last major project, because I refuse new ones or aren’t
asked, there would still be a lot to do each day:
interesting articles to read in the newspaper or online,
movies to see or see again, places to travel I haven’t
been yet. For now I haven’t changed at all how I
manage my days – indeed, I am farther behind than
ever. But one advantage of retiring soon: I will be able
to fit in things like travel that I should do while I am
still able.
When I had my hemicolectomy at age 48, and then
kept hemorrhaging and had to be reoperated, I was in
my hospital room for several days afterwards under
observation. Finally one day I was feeling much
better, and had been disconnected from tubes, and I
got up and went to an adjacent lounge, where there
was a table for my laptop and I could work much
better. In the meantime, my surgeon made his daily
visit, this time with interns and nurses. When he
didn’t find me in my room, he looked in the lounge and
saw me working away. “These are the people who
recover quickly,” he said to his entourage. Would the
doctor say that again after my next hospital visit?
Time will tell.
Leon writes:
At the time of last year’s letter, after a couple years
of research failure, I was about to switch research
groups -- from experiment to theory/simulation.
However, I didn’t start the new research in earnest
until May; I was temporarily back to taking classes
and being a teaching assistant.
I spent my first year as a teaching assistant in a
large, non-calculus class. This time, I was the sole
teaching assistant in a small class aimed at future
physics majors. This meant the students wanted to
be there and that I had a fair amount of control over
what the students did in lab.
Initially, I did things by the book, but I soon realized
the lab manual had issues. I encountered this when I
TAed before, but then there was always an older TA
-- familiar with the issues and how to work around
them. I didn’t think about why these known errors
weren’t fixed. It turns out the answer is simple: no
one bothered reporting the problems to the
instructional lab director. I’m not sure why; it does
take a little time, but graduate student time isn’t
particularly valuable.
However, even after fixing and reporting these
issues, there was sometimes a more fundamental
problem: the teaching approach didn’t work. I always
wondered if the teaching methods we use are
effective, but if students were having trouble in the
non-calculus class, there were always too many
other variables; maybe they just didn’t want to be
there, they weren’t comfortable with the math, etc.
But my current students didn’t have those problems,
and the labs could still be ineffective.
I was taking a class on physics education, and that
brought me to a study detailing serious problems
with an upcoming lab on interference and diffraction
-- how waves can interact, sometimes cancelling and
sometimes reinforcing each other. The study asked
a fairly straightforward question on the subject to
~1200 students before lecture, after lecture but
before lab, and after lab. In all cases, only ~5%
answered correctly.
Part of the problem is that the standard teaching
method never provides a detailed image of how the
waves interact, so students develop little intuition
and are limited to using a few equations which work
for certain cases. The equations didn’t apply to the
study’s question, so students couldn’t answer it.
I was also taking a computational electrodynamics
class, where we learned to simulate waves.
Combining all three classes together, I wrote a
simulation that visualized interference and
diffraction, made a new lab for it, and tried it with my
students. Afterwards, 60% of my students correctly
answered the study’s question. I wrote a paper on
the approach, which will soon be published in
Maurer-Stier Annual 2012, page 7
Physics Education (a preprint is also available.)
Getting it published was also an experience; it was
my first paper and I basically did it alone, but I won’t
detail that here.
I’ve long thought that physics education had serious
issues: almost never assigning projects, ignoring the
existence of computers, etc. However, this was the
first time I really saw the failings in detail -- exactly
what the traditional teaching method didn’t transfer
to students. It’s something I hope to give more
thought to, but the term was over; it was time to do
the research I was being paid for.
I was well over a year late in holding my preliminary
exam, where you present the research you’ve done
and say a little about what you’ll do next. Thankfully,
I received extensions from the department chair, but
passing the exam was my top priority. So, my new
advisor recommended a project that I could get
working quickly.
Silicon nano-wires are structures with a diameter
about 1/1000th the width of a hair and a length many
times longer than the diameter. They are of interest
as thermoelectric devices: either generating an
electrical current from a temperature difference (e.g.
powering a car’s electronics from the waste heat in
the engine’s exhaust), or generating a temperature
difference from an electrical current (e.g. making a
refrigerator without moving parts). Rough surfaces
give them their interesting properties because the
roughness impedes the flow of heat through the
wires more than the flow of electricity. However,
there are still a number of open questions about
these rough surfaces, including the best way to
simulate them.
An outgoing group member wrote a simulation to
model heat flow through these wires using one
method to handle the rough surfaces. I was to
modify his code to include other methods and
compare the different methods with each other and
experimental results. This turned out to be
complicated, mostly because the code contained
several bugs, was poorly designed, and was poorly
written.
For those of you familiar with big O notation, here’s
an example of its poor design. We needed to
calculate Discrete Fourier Transforms (DFTs).
Normally, this is done using the Fast Fourier
Transform algorithm, which runs in O(N*logN) time.
However, the code calculated the DFT a naive way,
in O(N^2) time. When I realized this, I switched to
the faster method, and what once took 3 hours now
took 1 second -- a speedup of ~10,000x.
My fixes got me second author on a paper, but it
meant that -- despite sinking a lot of time into it -- the
code wasn’t ready until October. My prelim was in
December, leaving little time to get results. However,
I just managed to get enough data, and I passed the
exam.
I’m still not sure how to feel about this line of work.
On the one hand, I do enjoy the programming, but
that’s something I could do elsewhere (possibly for
better pay). The simulation had very little new
physics in it; I was solving known equations, with a
known technique, using different boundary
conditions -- getting basically the results we
expected. There was a little excitement because I
found a small problem with one of the boundary
conditions, but that was about it. However, this
project was chosen because it was expedient, not
because it was exciting. Now that my prelim is done,
I’ll be starting on a new project which will hopefully
be better. At a minimum, I won’t be inheriting shoddy
code.
The net effect of all this (TAing, taking classes,
personal project to improve labs, fixing code and
getting results in time for a prelim) is probably the
busiest year I’ve had. I put in some time cycling,
gardening, and cooking, but that has been about it.
Thankfully, this leaves me with a simple new years
resolution: take it easier. Since I don’t have a
looming deadline, that should be simple. I’m hoping
to get back to some personal electronics projects
that have been on the backburner for ages, and I
joined the UW outing club; I’ve already taken part in
several of their activities.
That wraps it up for this letter. Many of the other
things that happened to me are documented online.
Enjoy the new year.