A Life in Research
The Knowledge Diagram above demonstrates that our perceptions can be faulty.
At first glance on this diagram one sees two white
lines as arms of the pentangle, but in reality the white
lines do not exist within the white squares. This is the
difference between perception and reality in knowledge.
In problem-solving, one must think and ensure that
that the problem to be solved is a real one, not a perceived
version. Perception is based on pre-conceived notions, i.e.
on prejudices which also affect our judgment of people, as
mentioned in the section
The Life in the Family.
Introduction
As mentioned earlier, I was born in 1938 in Bangladesh which
was then part of the British India. My father who was a
school teacher died just as I entered primary school.
However I was a good student and in due course I got my BSc
(Hons) degree in Physics and MSc degree in Nuclear Physics
from the University of Dhaka, where from S.N. Bose wrote his
famous paper with Einstein in 1927. The name Boson for a
type of subnulcear particles, such as Higgs Boson, comes
from that paper.
As for me, I gained my PhD in Particle Physics, along with
DIC (the postgraduate Diploma) from Imperial College, London
in1965. Subsequently I was engaged in physics research for a
number of years, first in the Pakistan Atomic Energy
Commission (PAEC), and next in Particle Physics at the
Rutherford Laboratory, England, when in early 1970 I
produced my well-known Particle-Physics paper referred to
below.
In April 1970, I left Particle Physics (PP) for Computer
Science (CS), joining SCICON computer consultancy company,
where I soon became the Director of its operations in Libya,
but BP (the Holding company) decided to close SCICON Libya
after BP Libya (not SCICON Libya) was nationalized by Col.
Gadhafi. I was
then transferred to SCICON UK (London). By then Bangladesh
got its independence, and SCICON decided not to invest in
Pakistan, because of its war atrocities in Bangladesh. So
there was no longer any talk of a software factory in
Karachi, where as a Bangladeshi I could not have gone
anyway. I worked in SCICON (London) for a while, before
moving in 1973 to the Computing Science Department of the
University of Aberdeen. This was my database era (see
below).
I left Aberdeen in 1986 to take up a Chair in Computer
Science at the University of Keele, where I established and
led the Data and Knowledge Engineering (DAKE) research
group, when I developed some advanced courses, in addition
to carrying out research in the area of DAKE, which included
databases. I retired in October, 2005 as Emeritus Professor,
but continued working in the DAKE area of research at Keele
University for a few more years until all of my PhD students
had completed their studies.
The Early Period
Education
My interest in
science research goes back to my school days when I saw in
my school book a picture, in a thinking pose, of the Bengali
scientist Sir J.C. Bose (1858-1937), who came from the Dhaka
area and who was the first Indian to get an FRS (in 1920).
I thought that research was finding solutions by
thinking –
an idea that I liked, with Physics at the core of my
interest. I started reading books on popular sciences,
including the Theory of Relativity, in the later school
years, when I bored my relatives explaining the wonders of
Relativity, which I am sure I did not understand. In the
nationwide Matriculation examination over the whole of
Bangladesh (the then East Pakistan), in 1953 I got the 10th
highest marks, and achieved a similar good performance in
the Intermediate of Science examination (equivalent to the
English Science A Level) two years later.
I then entered the Dhaka University for BSc Honours
in Physics, which I completed in 1958, followed by MSc in
Nuclear Physics in 1959.
Although I always got scholarships, my family still
had to sell some of its agricultural lands to support my
education, as the values of these scholarships were just
enough to cover only half the subsistence cost.
I had to live a simple life, and did not have any
western trousers until I enrolled in the University.
Even when I was presented to the Duke of Edinburgh in
the Dhaka University in 1959 as a top MSc student, I wore
only plain trousers and an ordinary shirt.
No jacket. However, I got my clothes ironed and
borrowed a tie and a watch, in order to show deference to
the honoured royal guest.
PAEC and Physics Research
Soon after my MSc, I was appointed a (Research) Fellow in
Physics at the University. The financially acute days were
then over my family no longer needed to sell lands. The first
thing I did with my first month’s pay was to buy sarees for
my mother and sister and a shirt for my brother.
After a year of
joining the University, I got a position in the Pakistan
Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) with a scholarship to study
for a PhD in Physics at Imperial College, London.
Towards the end of my PhD, I was offered a research position
in an Ivy-League university (Tufts University) in the USA
but I could not join as I got trapped in Pakistan after I
went home to see my mother before going to the USA. All
Pakistani borders were closed (except for people with
special permissions), due the 1965 India/Pakistan war.
The US offer lapsed after one year. Finally in 1967 I
was able to leave the PAEC to join the Rutherford High
Energy Physics Laboratory, now called just Rutherford Lab
(RL) in England.
I spent about three years in RL, visiting many European
Research centres, particularly CERN (Geneva), where its
Proton Synchrotron (the forerunner of, and at present the
feeder to, the Large Hadron Collider) was the main
experimental machine for Particle Physics (Bubble Chamber
Physics).
However, I did not want to settle in Britain, as I was eager
to return home (Pakistan then). So when the computer company
SCICON offered me an appointment in the early 1970s, to head
its planned software production company at Karachi, I jumped
at the prospect. It is also true that the High Energy
Physics I was engaged in was contracting at that time with
many well-known physicists losing their jobs, and I was not
confident that I could survive the contraction.
My High Point in Physics
The last paper I wrote on Particle Physics was on a
generalised technique for analysing some subnuclear
reactions. I worked on it during much of 1969, completing it
in January 1970, a few months before leaving RL to join
SCICON. I then made my last visit to CERN, where, as
customary, I gave a copy to CERN. Within a few weeks the
CERN Librarian wrote to me congratulating me on this paper
and asking my permission to produce a large number of
photocopies to meet the demand, saying that the paper had
created such an excitement in CERN that everyone wanted a
copy. I, of course, consented with joy.
I wish I kept that CERN letter, which I did not. I
did not even try to publish my paper as I was leaving
Physics.
When I returned to England after two years in the Middle
East, I was told by some of my former Particle-Physics
colleagues that they had seen my work being used and
referenced in some physics research papers.
Professor Ian Butterworth, my former teacher at the
Imperial College, my former boss at RL in 1970 and the
future Director-General of CERN, told me that RL had
made many copies of the paper to meet the demand, but later
the RL’s master copy was stolen.
That is, someone who took it from the RL’s open
Library to photocopy, did not return it to the shelf. So I
sent RL another copy.
I knew it was my best paper in Physics. I thought
that was the end.
However, in November 2013, I got an email from a researcher
in a German research group, asking me for a copy of that
paper, as he wanted to read the original, having seen it
being referred to in some places. At first I could not
believe that someone wanted a copy of my 43 year-old paper.
But someone did, which implied that my paper had been
relevant in Particle Physics all that time!
It was a pleasant and
humbling experience for me. I thought perhaps I was not as
bad a physicist as I sometimes believed myself to be.
However, following this request, I scanned the paper and
emailed the German researcher a copy. The RL, which I
contacted, also wanted a scanned copy, and hence I sent them
a copy. [Appendix A at the end of this section shows that
email trail, and Appendix B contains the scanned paper].
