[General] Conference, spring/summer 2016

[John Duffield]

I'm interested in a conference that's closer to home. 

 

From: General
[mailto:general-bounces+johnduffield=btconnect.com at lists.natureoflightandpar
ticles.org] On Behalf Of John Williamson
Sent: 02 November 2015 09:44
To: Nature of Light and Particles - General Discussion
<general at lists.natureoflightandparticles.org>
Cc: Nick Bailey <nick at bailey-family.org.uk>; 'Anthony Booth'
<abooth at ieee.org>; 'Ariane Mandray' <ariane.mandray at wanadoo.fr>
Subject: [General] Conference, spring/summer 2016

 

Dear all,

I am thinking of calling a conference in late spring or summer of next year
to alternate with the SPIE conference in odd years.

One possible venue is somewhere in Scotland (see copy of email I have sent
to the head of Science and engineering at Glasgow below).

Alternatively anywhere else in Europe would be fine - for other members of
the group who may like to host it. Martin and I have held workshops at
various venues before. Our modus operandi has that we put a few folk up with
ourselves or with friends- the rest fend for themselves.

In the first instance all we really need is a big enough room, nearby places
to eat, and local accomodation.

A couple of thousand (Pounds, Dollars or Euros), would be enough for me to
host this in my home town of Troon, on the west coast of Scotland. There are
plenty of facilities here, provided we do not clash with the open golf (held
here once every four years or so). With  a bit more we could begin to
sponsor some of the younger members who could not afford to come to SPIE.
There are even good campsites locally, for those who want to travel really
cheaply. 

I would like to know who might be interested, and also if anyone knows of
any sources of funding we may be able to look to. We can do a sort of
proceedings - and just post it to research gate, Vikra and/or Academia.edu.
In another forum (Fanaten) we have produced a confernce book ... and this
may also be possible.

What does everyone think?

Regards, John (W).

Text of today's email to Muffy Cladr (Head of Science and engineering at
Glasgow) follows .......

Dear Muffy,

 

I enjoyed your talk last Monday, it was a breath of fresh air. I think I can
throw some light on some of the points you raised on the NSS and on
citations. I'm afraid I had to leave soon after your talk - so missed the
discussion.  You asked for feedback - and also on ideas to take Glasgow
forwards. That is what this note is about.

 

I want to give feedback on citations, on the NSS scores and how they might
be improved and on a means to move Glasgow's position up the rankings with
respect to other Russel group Universities. I will cover the citations here,
but will leave the NSS stuff to another note which was originally intended
to be just for those teaching Mathematics in engineering, but which covers
the points on the NSS and which I will circulate in engineering. The new
action is the possibility of organising a possible set of conferences
somewhere in Scotland on a new cross-disciplinary topic across physics,
mathematics, computer science, chemistry and engineering, to be held in
"even" years and to match up with a biennial conference in the California in
"odd" years. 

 

The first such would be held in 2016 and even years thereafter. It could
become very very big indeed and may, in the longer term, represent an
unprecedented opportunity to help take the university to nearer to the top
of the Russell group.

 

Now you probably do not know even who I am, since you have not been active
in any of the fields where I am well-known, so I will first fill you in on
some relevant aspects. 

 

Firstly- on the citations mystery. I think that may be, at least partly,
down to me. I am the highest cited researcher (I think) in engineering in
Glasgow. Also my citations, being mostly in physics journals, also count
towards those for physics. This citation count is on a relatively small
number of publications (about a hundred) but most with a very high impact,
most published in the top journals, and covering three widely-separated
fields. Most of the citations have no other Glasgow co-authors - so cannot
count for others. The average impact (per paper - on citations (about 100
per paper) is far higher than that that for any of these journals (max about
4 per paper) - and my contribution is therefore part of the reason why the
journals I submit to are "high impact" in the first place.  I could well be
wrong on this, but will copy it to research and teaching staff and folk will
correct me if I am wrong.

 

For comparison, the excellent (but no longer with us) Richard de la Rue used
to beat me on the h-index count- but not on the number of citations. He is
(rightly!) co-author on hundreds of Glasgow papers, but most of these have
had little or no impact (as measured by citations). I have not checked, but
I am pretty sure I have the top two (and quite possibly more) cited papers
for the whole of Glasgow engineering.  Further, Richard having left us will
have had little effect on the Glasgow citation count, as many Glasgow
co-authors remain. The effect of his excellence is now "frozen in", at least
for the time being.

 

To numbers: Google scholar lists me with more than 10000 citations and an
h-index of 42. Most of the citations are to papers in the top peer reviewed
journals in whichever field. Though some of these papers are now rather old,
they were both wide-ranging and seminal so there remains very high citation
rate to them per year. 

 

While citations in peer-reviewed high quality journals do not count strongly
in the  recent ref , they may do so again in future. They DO count strongly
for many of the "international rankings" (40 percent in some cases, I
believe). I have not bothered to work out how high the impact on Glasgow
would be if I left - but am pretty sure that would, by itself, drop Glasgow
right out of the "top 100 universities" in most international counts for
engineering. Because of the numbers it would also have some significant
impact on the rankings "all of science" for Glasgow as well.

 

The reason that my citations are so high has been because of work at the
absolute top international level in three distinct fields.  Work in particle
physics (at CERN) pushed experiments which turned out to be seminal in two
different areas. This led (and still leads) to a very large number of
citations.  There followed a move to more practical science, to
micro-electronics in industry. Here I was lucky enough to be given much
freedom (and a very large budget ) to develop the experimental, device and
material science needed to make a real impact and move the world forwards. I
imagined, designed and developed the first electronic device to be called
"nano" (not by me but by others), the "quantum point contact". Again this
was seminal work, again leading to lots of citations. 

 

Two years after my design of two devices in particular the "quantum point
contact" and the "quantum dot" (yes that was me - I invented the worlds
first (semiconductor) quantum dot), most of the contributions at the major
international conferences were derivative of the work on the experiments and
devices I had designed. They still are - hence the continuing high citation
rate. 

 

This early work was why, in the late eighties, a certain Steve Beaumont got
in touch asking to be included in the international collaboration I was
putting together at the time. I said ok. I then wrote a (series of) grants
(Steve put in quite a useful contribution there too).  One was called
Quantecs, worth a good few millions at the time. I'm sure it is likely that
"Quantics", our present big grant, was not named after it - but there is
always that chance! This early work had a large impact in the standing of
Glasgow in the world and continues to do so. 

 

I am afraid I have been a bit of a  disappointment to many here at Glasgow,
as that field was dropped to work on something completely different. This
was partly because it was exactly what I wanted to do, partly because I felt
it was far more important to the progress of world science but also because
Glasgow could not then get its act together (and still cannot) to measure
the basic properties of what were (and still are in some respects)
world-leading devices. I have a few dozen of in my desk drawer that I
designed, developed experimental equipment to measure, and published papers
on in the eighties and nineties. In Glasgow, we did not (and still does
not!) have the capability to measure them in the (fractional) quantum Hall
regime for which they were designed. If I am wrong, please let me know and
you can measure them if you want to!

 

Instead, I have been working for the last decades on a very high risk,
potentially very high impact piece of theoretical work (see below), covering
the basis of most of science. It was to have the freedom to do this, in
work-time as my research, that I took a factor of two pay cut at the time,
refused offered salaries in the early nineties of 120 grand (four times my
then Glasgow salary), and moved from industry into academia. The new work
required the understanding of wide areas of science, from (classical and
quantum) field theory to nanotechnology, from the Standard Model to
pre-Einstein relativity and from computer science to the mathematics of
reality. It may have been expected that other areas, such as string theory,
may have been important too - but these proved dissappointing. It has taken
some time, but work on the new theoretical basis is now yielding fruit. The
work had, up until last year, yielded few publications, so does not figure
in the last ref. Neither have I been writing grants. The salaries on offer
on a grant simply do not attract the caliber of people required, so are a
complete waste of time. The collaboration has been with many other
high-level workers worldwide, including academics, industrialists and the
independently wealthy. 

 

 

So what is this other research - and why might it be that thing that could
put Glasgow and Scotland back to the cutting edge of progress in world
science? 

 

The new thread was one tried by Einstein for 3 decades or so and also by
Dirac, de Broglie, and so on. They were looking for an underlying theory of
how "elementary" particles worked. What they were made of. What was the
origin of matter, time and space. What is an "elementary" particle such as
the electron? What is charge, quantum mechanical spin, the reason for the
quantum and relativistic nature of space and time? That sort of thing. I
have been doing this because I think I can make a contribution. I have been
a "world changer" already in two different fields, as my record proves.
Compared to those contributions, of international import though they were,
the present work is at a different kind of level to that which is usually
referred to as having "impact".  This is indeed "world changing".

 

What is it? It is an underling theory of space-time, matter and light. It is
a new theory based on a new linear equation. The Dirac equation (the basis
of relativistic quantum mechanics), as it should have been. Starting with
just space and time the theory claims to describe BOTH light and matter.
Exactly. Just and no more.  If true (and this is the big if), the new theory
is to present science as atoms were to Chemistry, relativity and quantum
mechanics were to physics, Wittgenstein was to western Philosophy, and Pask
was to cybernetics. An understanding of how things really work at the sub
"elementary" particle level. A complete new framework for thinking. A
framework where one can imagine and design new devices, new materials, and
new systems. Sub-electron electronics. Sub-quantum chemistry. The underlying
mechanics, subject to computer simulation, of the fundamental underlying
processes of space, time and mass-energy.

 

Needless to say this is, potentially, very very big indeed. Dirac big,
Maxwell big, Maybe even Einstein or Leonardo big. Either very very big, or
just plain wrong. Unlike some controversial areas there is little risk
though. It is, after all, only a theory!

 

Controversial or not: so far so good. The new theory has been "out" since
last August. Since then, some top physicists have been trying very very hard
to put a dent in it - but no-one yet has managed. One of the reviewers of
one of my recent papers said explicitly that it reminded him of Einstein's
seminal work. It is, at the very least, an alternative to alternatives such
as the various string theories.

 

Further, though controversial for the time being, it is only a theory. Most
theories prove wrong.  Good grief, all of the current theories of science
have areas where they do not describe all of experiment correctly. This one
does not, as far as I know. You mentioned in your talk that others had
called your work "good". That goes for me too - up till now. Further, the
new all-Scots Williamson-Maxwell theory seems sound.  At least it is so far,
so good.

 

I have always had a small (but very international) fan-club on the
theoretical basis of earlier ideas. There was much theoretical progress on
many theoretical fronts over a couple of decades, mostly on complex, hard to
solve, non-linear models. 

 

Since I invented the new, linear, relativistic theory last year, affairs
have been moving rapidly. There were invitations to speak at three
international conferences this summer. I used to think it strange at one
time if not invited as a keynote speaker at least one international
conference per year, and had to turn down many invitations in the eighties
and nineties. My last invited, plenary, keynote talk at an international
conference (on computing!) had been in 2012. Things are hotting up again
now: I was invited to speak at three this year - in Moscow (theoretical
physics), Berlin (general physics) and San Diego (Engineering).  I had to
turn two of the invitations down, for financial reasons.

 

 

Though there are, presently, no other Glasgow co-authors, the new theory is
by no means all my own work. It is not a "one-man-band". There are a whole
lot of (also very good) international collaborators.  My contribution to the
work is (at least!) matched by my good friend and co-worker of three
decades, Martin van der Mark (in Holland). There are contributions from many
others - Stephen Leary, Tim Drysdale Richard de la Rue and John Weaver here
at Glasgow. Phil Butler in New Zealand. Niels Gresnigt in China. Half a
dozen folk down in England (mostly academics).  Dozens of folk in America
(mostly California, for some reason) People in France, Germany, Sweden  .
people on every continent except Antartica. These are good people, but the
contribution is usually limited to that appropriate to an acknowledgement.
It is Martin, Stephen (who has now left Glasgow) and I who are the only
authors on the papers.

 

Anyway . back to the conference I am thinking about helping to organise. I
have organized conferences and workshops before, both in nanotechnology and
in quantum field theory. I have organized a series of workshops in the past
in various places round Europe. One of our group owns a Farmhouse in
Sancerre, overlooking the river and with a room big enough to take 40 or so.
Martin has a big room at the top of his house which will take 30. We have
had workshops in both venues. We have, so far simply declared where and when
they will be, invited folk, limited the numbers to our capacity, arranged a
projector and screen and they have paid their own way. Though this model is
still possible, the numbers interested are now getting too big for this for
this and we need to have access to larger facilities. 

 

Two years ago, after students kept badgering me to explain topics they found
hard - quantum mechanics, relativity, quantum electrodynamics - just
standard stuff from science but at a high level. I would help but the number
of people trying to crowd round a table whenever I explained anything got a
bit too big so I said I would get a room. I took the big lecture theatre in
the Rankine and said I would give a series of lectures covering "all of
science". One lecture at a time - at 8am on a Friday morning.  First lecture
- 30 folk, second one - about a hundred - with videos and cameras. Third one
- folk standing at the back. Moved to a (much) bigger lecture theatre. Next
one: there were three hundred or so folk - many having traveled from places
such as Edinburgh or Dundee that morning, standing outside in the dark and
the rain at 8am on a dark Scots winter morning. There is a huge appetite for
understanding how things work!

 

Many colleagues that I know of from maths, physics, chemistry and
engineering attended as well. The feedback indicates that many of them
enjoyed these talks and learned something themselves. I had hoped to extend
the series further this year - but have not been able to do so due to
commitments in other work-areas.

 

I have no idea how many folk will want to come if I announce a workshop/
conference. This depends, of course, as to whether it is restricted to
invitation only or is open.  It could be a hundred or three hundred,
depending on the marketing.  

 

The eventual scope may be similar to that of a workshop I was invited to in
Autumn of last year, at Imperial. Access to a big lecture theatre, plenty of
good restaurants in the vicinity, invitation only, further sort it out
yourselves. Despite the lack of formal structure, there were many big names
there in several fields. These included Roger Penrose (Oxford, physics), Tim
Palmer (Oxford, climate change), and Basil Hiley (Birkbeck, fundamentals of
quantum mechanics).  There were folk contributing from the U.S. by
video-link. There were a hundred plus folk there. I had lunch on the first
day with Roger, Basil and Tim. The discussion was on quantum mechanical
wave-function collapse (mostly me Basil and Roger).  Spent subsequent hours
with those two on the following evening and morning. These are the kind of
folk I hope to invite. The conference will be on the nature of light,
material particles and "quantum collapse".

 

I am far too busy to organize much. The main thrust of present research is
to develop publicise and publish papers in the area of the new theory, not
mess about with administration.  I have no funding and no time or
inclination to spend much time looking for funding (my teaching load has
been increased fourfold in the last few years - to the point where I am now
responsible for about a tenth of all the FTE undergraduate student
experience in Engineering ). I intend to apply for some funding this year -
but only to try to mitigate my teaching load.  

 

The main requirement for the conference will be for access to a reasonably
big lecture theatre, preferably somewhere in beautiful Scotland, and with
decent accommodation and a campsite (for some very enthusiastic, but poor
PhD's) nearby. Date: sometime in late spring or for over the summer 2016 (to
repeat every even year thereafter).  Extent: three days to a week. Is there
a possibility of finding some internal funding to help with this enterprise?

 

To others in science and engineering: is there anyone else out there who
would like to help?

 

Regards, John Williamson.

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