Thesis Thoughts

Recently I was reading the PhD thesis of my student, Veselin. He was going to have his examination and so I was looking through a draft. He recently received a fellowship to go to do a postdoc abroad and so has decided that it’s best to write up and get everything done before it gets too late into the Summer. His new job requires him to have a PhD, of course. (He was, I’m happy to report, successfully doctored (as it were), after an excellent performance in his exam.)

I recall being in the same situation myself, 16 years ago. (Wow, so long…) Happy memories. I got a fellowship to go to my first postdoc in the mythical land across the sea, where so much of the wonderful physics I’d been studying was done by the giants of the field. I was going to get to go there and join them. But I had to write up and graduate first.

I loved writing (and, as you may have noticed, still do) and so relished the prospect. I procrastinated an awful lot (as I do…) for a while before getting down to it, even managing to catch chicken pox for a while (which helped keep me at home for a bit, usefully), and then eventually settled down to it. I essentially locked myself away at home for three or four solid weeks, with a little computer, in my room at the top of the […] Click to continue reading this post

News From The Front, III

[Note: Originally posted on CV on 4th November 2005. 25 comments on it here. Feel free to add new ones here.] ___________________________________________________________________________________ [Warning! This is an unusually technical post.] Ok, so last time, I told you a bit about the motivations for what I’ve been up to. Now I want … Click to continue reading this post

News From The Front, II

[Note: Originally posted on CV on 31st October 2005. 31 comments on it here. Feel free to add new ones here.] ___________________________________________________________________________________ Well, I suddenly have 45 extra minutes on my hands as I was supposed to be at a very interesting two hour lunch meeting which I’ve now missed. … Click to continue reading this post

News From The Front, I

[Note: Originally posted on CV on 3rd October 2005. 65 comments on it here. Feel free to add new ones here.] ___________________________________________________________________________________ Below is a snapshot of a computation I was working on earlier this Summer. Will explain later. Spoke about it at the Southern California Strings Seminar. I’m curious … Click to continue reading this post

Old News

The next three posts are repeats of posts I did on CV in 2005. They were the first three in the series entitled “News From The Front”, and their subject matter partly lay the groundwork for a post on some new results that I hope to write soon. Enjoy! -cvj