Byung Kyu Park's Personal Website

I’m sorta ashamed that I didn’t know this already:

There is a grain of truth in every legend. One of those legends is the story of Nawojka, who is a good example to follow for young girls with academic inclinations. Nawojka is considered to be the first female student and teacher in Poland. It was about 1407 when she, disguised in boy’s clothing, entered the Kraków Academy in violation of all rules, laws, customs and tradition; defying everything that was expected of women at that time. This fact was recorded about 1429 by Martin of Leibitz, an elderly abbot of the Benedictine order in Vienna.

This is the front of the dorm (they have a bar and cafeteria within the same building):

And this is a sign for the cafeteria that’s been there forever (at least since 2007):

And so should clergy on matters of science.

After all, when anybody becomes stupid or arrogant enough to speak on matters outside his expertise as if he is, he is bound to make a logical (or rhetorical) errors:

In the June 2009 issue, Jeffery Winkler treats us to a cute refutation of the dominant view that the universe was created. He first equates the word “magic” with “impossible.” This is an example of begging the question, since Webster makes no such association. He next asserts that Christians believe the universe was produced by an act of “magic.” I’ve never heard it put that way and doubt any Christian would agree with this formulation of his belief. Nevertheless, it provides a convenient straw man which Winkler has set himself up to vanquish. One assumes he was writing with tongue in cheek.

If we agree not to insult each other with sophistries such as arguing that if you haven’t lost horns, you must have horns on your head, it’s quite clear why scientists cannot speak on matters of religion (except as an ignorant layperson, as I am) and clergy cannot speak on matters of science (except as someone not quite so familiar with scientific methods and latest developments).

As for creation, that is clearly outside the realm of scientific theories. Of course, I am not saying, as Stephen Hawking claims that the Pope did at some point, that scientists are forbidden from speaking of what may have happened before Big Bang or what may have caused it. What I am saying is that currently accepted theories cannot describe the events of Big Bang as we approach t = 0. The consensus is that our theories will begin to break down (or rather, become unified) at such energy densities. There is a singularity there that we do not yet understand and I doubt anyone can devise an experiment which can shed some light on this issue (before the end of the human civilization, anyway). Where experimental evidences are silent, we are silent—sure, theorists are free to speculate, but without experimental evidences, they remain speculations.

Of course, there are overlaps between matters of science and matters of religion. History is one. If some artifact is discovered which might be significant to religion, of course science (such as carbon dating or any other forensic methods) has a role to play in analyzing its physical aspects. If religion makes claims on our physical world, such as the age of Earth, of course science has a role to play. But the truth is, when it comes down to the really fundamental question, such as the existence of a Creator (especially one that supposedly exists outside our universe), there is no such overlap.

And where there is no such overlap, scientists should shut up lest they sound stupid.

Mary Baker explains why she chooses not to have any qualifiers to her identity: American.

Amen to that.

I have held the same position for about a year now (i.e. as long as I have been a naturalized American citizen). I am an American. Any other adjectives or qualifiers demean my proud United States citizenship. I am an American. There is no other group of people to whom I belong or to whom I owe anything. I am an American and whatever I may come to accomplish reflects on Americans and no one else.

America is the Greatest Melting Pot, not a salad bowl. I do not feel that anyone who wants to retain their distinct cultural identity and flock together among the birds of a feather can honestly call themselves “American”. Sure, each group of immigrants do bring their unique culture and enrich us: but as they enrich us and we assimilate to them, they need to be enriched by us and assimilate to our American culture. As much as I like Mexican food, I don’t want Chicanos deluding themselves that they are Americans. Go back to Mexico if you want to separate yourself from the mainstream America.

I just wish that everyone would stop playing identity politics and focus on this great country and how we can make it better together, as Americans—or not, as “loyal opposition” is one of the greatest American (well, and British) ideas.

Update: Lloyd Marcus is another proud American.

While some classes may be closed due to the walkout on Sept. 24 being publicized right now, I have great hopes that classes that actually teach something (i.e. anything but humanities, such as political science or English, really) will go on as if nothing happened. In case my hopes, that reasonable teachers would not participate in a political publicity stunt at the cost of their students, are dashed to bits, I am determined to make sure that my students are not affected, not in my class.

This supposed protest didn’t come up in our weekly Physics 111-BSC GSI meeting, and I hope it never will (because that would indicate that no one plans on skipping work that day). But in case it does, and in case any of the GSIs normally in the lab on Thursdays walk out, I will volunteer to be in the lab.

I know unions don’t like that v-word. People who volunteer don’t make any money and that means they can’t get a piece of the paycheck. Fuck the union. Fuck United Auto Workers Local 2865, a.k.a. the GSI union.

I have tried hard to keep politics out of my classrooms, whether it’s from me (you might have seen that I leave most … inflammatory political posts off this website) or from anyone else. I haven’t had to so far worry about the “anyone else” part, but if you think that I would let anyone harm the learning environment to serve their political cause just because opposing would be unpopular among my peers or because the damned GSI union would be displeased, you would be wrong.

There are only two things, short of me falling deathly ill, that can keep me out of the BSC lab on Thursday, Sept. 24: (1) my fellow GSIs show up to work and I don’t have to do their job for them; (2) none of the students come to the lab due to their enthusiasm with this walkout.

We will see what happens.

I don’t know why I am only now finding out about the 9/11 memorial donated by Russians to commemorate those perished in that awful attack on American soil in 2001.

Why wasn’t there any significant media coverage? Was there so little coverage when the French donated the Statue of Liberty as well? Or is this lack of coverage just another indication of their bias against covering anything related to Islamic terrorists unless it puts America and her allies in bad light?

Regardless, now that I know (thanks to this essay), this is one place I want to visit in some near future (the World Trade Center memorial would be another place, if it existed).

On Physics Today:

Now, Klaus Hornberger of Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich and his postdoc Johannes Trost have resolved Hund’s venerable paradox.1 The two theoreticians analyzed the case of one of the smallest chiral molecules, dideuterium disulfide (D2S2; see figure 1), tumbling in and buffeted by a monatomic gas, helium. The calculation uncovered a surprisingly large phase dependence in the scattering amplitude that distinguishes the two isomers. Thanks to the phase dependence, the ambient gas atoms can pick out the molecule’s left-handed and right-handed isomers far more readily than the molecule’s other states. Even at low temperature and pressure, the effect of the He atoms colliding again and again with D2S2 is to knock the molecule into a chiral state and keep it there before it has a chance to tunnel out to its mirror image.

In one sense, Hornberger and Trost’s result is rather mundane: If you take proper, quantum account of how atoms collide with molecules, you derive the expected result, a mix of left-handed and right-handed isomers. But that mundanity is profound. The transition from a quantum superposition to a classical state arises not when some mysterious size threshold is breached but when the system’s interaction with its environment exceeds a calculable level of intensity. Decoherence theory, as that envirocentric view is known, is vindicated.

The decoherence theory of macroscopic and microscopic divide always appealed to me as an explanation of the quantum measurement problem (it boils down to saying that there is no fundamental problem), but … is this it?

Because of my damnable habit of falling asleep in lectures I couldn’t catch it all, but if I remember Prof. Commins’ description of the quantum measurement problem and its proposed solutions correctly, he had deep reservations about the decoherence theory (and he had a few examples to support his reservation which, again because of my habit of falling asleep in lectures, I didn’t catch).

Maybe I should drop by some time and ask him.

I’m just going to post two (somewhat old) emails I have in my inbox. I think I’ve made it fairly clear how I feel about these issues, so I don’t think I need to add my own commentaries. I think the emails themselves and who sent them speak clearly enough.

First, the email from the chair of physics department:

From: Frances Hellman <phys...@berkeley.edu>
To: ALL Faculty <facu...@physics.berkeley.edu>,
        Staff All <sta...@physics.berkeley.edu>,
        Grads all <gra...@physics.berkeley.edu>,
        Undergrad majors <maj...@physics.berkeley.edu>
Subject: [Grads] Department budget cut information
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:34:26 -0700

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Dear Physics faculty, staff, grads, majors, post-docs, visitors,

I attach (and insert below for convenience) a summary of how the
department is handling its budget cut.  To date, most of you have been
focused on the furlough program, which affects our salaries and our
ability to do our jobs, but which is temporary.   In addition to this, the
Physics Department is taking what is being called a permanent budget cut of
approximately $400,000 (~20% of our permanent state budget, similar to
other departments).  I have worked hard with staff and faculty to arrive at
what we think is the best way to handle this cut, and outline the details
below.  A cut of this magnitude will have impact. There is without doubt
things here that will make you angry and frustrated - I share that
frustration, and am doing what I can to mitigate it.  This mainly consists
of trying to choose as wisely as possible how and where to make the cuts,
keeping eyes open for places to recover money, and fund raising to offset
cuts where possible.  Your input is and will be appreciated.

We looked hard at all parts of the department to find the best ways to
make this cut.  We anticipate being able to do this without layoffs, which
I note many departments are facing, but by necessity there are going to be
some difficult choices and some services provided in the past will have to
be eliminated or reduced.   I wrote you previously concerning one
significant part of the budget plan, which involved an increase and
restructuring of shop recharge rates.  I am now writing to you with the
other parts of the reduction plan for this upcoming year.  I apologize for
the fact that some of these changes are being implemented with virtually no
notice (e.g. lecture demos; end of semester teaching schedule announced by
the university).  This is not how any of us like to operate, but the
process is cumbersome and not easy to anticipate what and when we will get
information from which we must make decisions.  I reiterate that none of
this is being done lightly -- it is not possible to take a budget reduction
from the state of this magnitude without incurring some pain.  It is also
not possible to say much about what is likely next year -- the university
is looking at a variety of ways to help reduce our reliance on state
funding, while still supporting excellent research and teaching and
remaining committed to being an open public university.   I do want here to
inject one personal comment -- I still believe that Berkeley and
particularly our Physics Department is and will be a great institution.  I
am committed to finding ways to make that continue to be true, and will
work with you as best as I can do to achieve this.

The changes for our department described below have been arrived at in
consultation with faculty and staff of the department.  We are working
hard to find ways to increase income, and have targeted several opportune
fund raising efforts which have already begun-- ranging from support for
the Advanced Lab (Physics 111), to SPS, to graduate student fellowships
(two endowments), to (hopefully) a new endowed chair.  Our successes in the
past have in fact been most helpful in mitigating the impact of the state
budget disaster on our department.  Our block grant (grad student support)
and our TAS (GSI and lecturer) budgets have not been cut, so negative
impacts on some of our core functions are somewhat less severe than might
have been.

One important point to note --the below are associated with cuts in our
permanent budget.  There is in addition the furlough program, which will
impact all staff and faculty (graduate students, post-docs and anyone 100%
on non-state funding are exempt).  Furlough days will inevitably have an
impact on how department services can be handled.  The staff in our
department work very hard to meet departmental needs, but furloughs will
impact their ability to do this, and faculty and students need to
understand and work with staff to avoid missed deadlines and other
problems.  It is therefore extremely important to anticipate your needs
such as purchasing or grant handling or lecture demos; get requests in
early and recognize that staff may not be able to provide all the services
you have previously received (although I note that the search for another
accounting analyst is still underway and will help relieve pressure when it
is successful).

Specific cuts (approximate savings in parentheses):
1.    The shop recharge rates have been modified as previously discussed.
The Electronics Shop manager position (budgeted at 100%) is reduced by 50%,
allowing us to continue to employ our present (temporary) 1/2 time E-shop
manager Jerry Przybylski. In addition, the shop tool allowance has been
temporarily suspended.  Recharge income and shop usage will be carefully
monitored during the year.

2. Instructional support services will be reduced by ½ person.  This takes
advantage of Cindy Holmes' retirement -- she was full time FTE but will be
replaced by a ½ FTE.  Instructional support (lecture demos, lower division
labs, advanced lab) will re-organize to minimize impact on teaching, but
you should expect to see reductions in availability of demos for classes.
Guidelines on how this will be handled will be sent to instructors and
GSI's for affected classes.

3.  Our main administrative office is discontinuing its student helper,
and Nathan Proctor will be covering assignments in other parts of the
department, in addition to his primary duties as web master, colloquium
and special events organizer.  He will also be helping to cover for
Madeleine Gordon, who will be retiring this fall.  A number of other staff
have opted for a temporary time reduction (in addition to the mandatory
furloughs) which help offset costs in other areas.

4. Colloquium travel budget and special events budget (Segre and
Oppenheimer, annual staff, student, faculty holiday parties) have been
maintained, but with reduced budgets where possible; support for colloquia
entertainment expenses is reduced to a maximum of $175 per dinner.

5.  Faculty recruiting allowance has been eliminated for now (~$12,500);
funding for bringing in diversity speakers to the department has been
reduced to $2000/year, with a max of $400 per speaker, first come first
serve; funding for AMO seminar has been reduced to $1500 per year.

6.  Support for SWPS, SPS, COMPASS, CalDay, graduation, and 111 lab have
been maintained, as has grad student recruiting budget.

7.  Cookie/tea will only be provided on Mondays (colloquium day).  On
other days, the department will provide tea only.  (~$3000 per year)

8. The faculty lunches will no longer be held in the faculty club --
attendance was too light to justify the cost.  (~$2500 per year).  For
this upcoming year, we will try holding this informally in room 324
LeConte on Thursdays and see if attendance improves.

9. Telephone lines-- we have already identified 16 phone lines that have
been eliminated (saving ~$6000 per year) and estimate that there are an
additional ~16 lines that can be eliminated.

10.  PANIC room charges are currently being assessed to see if there is
room for savings.  Other small cuts have been made in all areas of the
department.

11.  There have been shifts of personnel from state funds to more
discretionary funds -- this may impact the availability of matching and
recruiting funds and other discretionary costs.  The impact of this will
be seen in time, particularly as we see if/how increased recharge rates
decrease shop usage.

Sincerely,
Frances Hellman, Physics Department Chair

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_______________________________________________
Grads mailing list
Gra...@physics.berkeley.edu

http://physics.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/grads

And the second email is from my GSI union “executive board”, or, as I like to call them, union pigs:

From: UAW 2865 Berkeley <berk...@uaw2865.org>
Subject: UC employees hold no-confidence vote on President Mark Yudof
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2009 22:24:15 +0000 (UTC)

August 26, 2009

Dear UAW 2865 member,

Employees throughout the University of California system will be participating
in a no-confidence vote on UC President Mark Yudof. The vote will take place
from today through Wednesday, September 2 on all UC campuses, and results
will be announced on September 3rd. The vote has been organized by a coalition
of unions protesting Yudof’s budgetary policies and rejecting the notion that UC
has a fiscal emergency.

The university union coalition is encouraging all employees to register their
rejection of Yudof’s policies by participating in the no-confidence vote.

The remaining vote times/locations for your campus are:

Thu, 8/27
Bancroft/Telegraph, 11:30 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.
University Village, 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Dwinelle Hall, 8:30 p.m. - 9:30 p.m.

Thu, 8/27 thru Wed, 9/2
Moffitt Library/Free Speech Movement Café, 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Northgate (Hearst/Euclid), 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Westgate (Center/Oxford), 7:30 a.m. - 9:00 a.m.

Fri, 8/28 thru Wed, 9/2
Bancroft & Telegraph, 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.

Tue, 9/1 thru Wed, 9/2
Yali's/Stanley Hall, 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Lawrence Hall of Science, 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.
1111 Franklin (UCOP), 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Richmond Field Station, 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.

Wed, 9/2
College/Bancroft, 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.

In solidarity,

UAW Local 2865 Executive Board

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
UAW 2865 Berkeley
2855 Telegraph Ave, Suite 305
Berkeley, CA 94705
phone: (510) 549-3863  /  fax: (510) 549-2514
berk...@uaw2865.org  /  www.uaw2865.org

mail-list.com    1302 Waugh Dr. #438    Houston, Texas    77019    USA

As a commentary not on the emails but on my own sentiments, this is all I have to say: my jobs at UC Berkeley were my first ever. As a first employer, I could not have asked for a better one—and as a continuing, 6th-year employee, I could not ask for a better workplace.

As for “my” union, for the life of me, I cannot figure out what they do with my $9 that they take out of my paycheck every month. Aside from giving salaries to the union pigs, I mean.

Well, so the GSI union held a “no confidence vote” over last couple weeks. I didn’t vote because: 1) we are not in a parliamentary system with a responsible government; “no confidence vote” is as meaningless as non-binding ASUC resolution condemning Israel; 2) the voting times were not convenient or even easy to understand.

Daily Cal now reports on how that extra-legal vote turned out:

More than 10,000 ballots—1,300 on the UC Berkeley campus-were tallied in the vote questioning Yudof’s handling of the UC system’s financial dilemma, with the measure of no confidence passing with an overwhelming 96 percent of the votes.

Great. 96 percent of people voting agreeing with each other. So, to make the numbers easy, let’s say it was 100 percent, like the percentage of North Korean voters supporting Secretary Kim. The report also says 1,300 people voted on UC Berkeley campus. I don’t really care about other UC campuses, so I’ll just work with that number.

How many are exactly 1,300 people, given the size of UC Berkeley campus? Well, we have about 10,000 graduate students, a good majority of which have been a GSI at one point or another. So, I will assume that there are 5,000 members of the GSI union (who are currently on UC Berkeley campus) who got the same email I did. Assuming that the 1,300 voters were coming from this 5,000-member pool, we have a turnout ratio of approximately 25% supposedly expressing disapproval.

So, if we assume that people who didn’t vote, like myself, didn’t really have an opinion on Yudof, what’s his actual disapproval rate? Well, so he has 25% people who “strongly disagree” with his policies (that may sound high, but Obama has 40% of American voters strongly disagreeing with his policies, so it’s not so high compared to some other miserable failure). If we split the people who didn’t vote in half, then UC President Yudof has 62.5% disapproval rate and 37.5% approval rate. I’d say that’s decent, considering that it’s in the middle of a supposedly the worst recession since the Great Depression and that the State of California, the primary funding source for UC, has been broke for some time. And remember: this estimate is based on the assumption that those eligible for voting in this farce was just the members of the GSI union. If we assume that the vote represents all UC Berkeley affiliates, as the article suggests, then it’s 1,300 voters out of 30,000-member community, giving us a whopping 4.3% turn-out rate, and corresponding 52.2% disapproval of Yudof and 47.8% approval.

So, while I have no particular opinion on UC President Yudof (that’s why I didn’t vote), you can see how ineffectual and unrepresentative this union vote is. And there is a good reason. According to the email I received on Aug. 26th, following were the voting times and places:

Thu, 8/27
Bancroft/Telegraph, 11:30 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
University Village, 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Dwinelle Hall, 8:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.

Thu, 8/27 thru Wed, 9/2
Moffitt Library/Free Speech Movement Café, 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Northgate (Hearst/Euclid), 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Westgate (Center/Oxford), 7:30 a.m. – 9:00 a.m.

Fri, 8/28 thru Wed, 9/2
Bancroft & Telegraph, 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.

Tue, 9/1 thru Wed, 9/2
Yali’s/Stanley Hall, 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Lawrence Hall of Science, 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.
1111 Franklin (UCOP), 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Richmond Field Station, 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.

Wed, 9/2
College/Bancroft, 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.

So, unless you reacted to this email with less than 24 hour turn-around time, you had to find one of those 1-hr blocks at various, unpredictable locations in order to vote at all. While I don’t have any data on how the votes were distributed in time, it wouldn’t be surprising if a majority of voters voted on Aug. 27, at Bancroft/Telegraph during the only 6-hr block. And it wouldn’t be surprising if a majority of voters were union insiders who knew about this vote long, long before this email was ever sent out.

This isn’t so different from how the union is usually run: pretty much like Venezuela. Votes are held, for ratification of contract negotiations and such, but the times for votes are carefully chosen to minimize the voter turn-out as much as possible, which ensures that only the hardcore members of the union, i.e. those who wrote up those proposals in the first place, get to vote, so they ensure their 100% “voter approval”.

So, one might ask: why am I a member of this undemocratic union? Well, the fact of the matter is, it matters very little to them whether I am a member or not. As long as I teach at Berkeley, they collect their “fair share” from my paycheck, if I am not a union member, I think around $8 per month when I’m teach 10-hrs per week. As a member of the union, I pay around $9 per month as “union due”. While I am not sure if $1/month is worth my money, in terms of the only thing I get is updates to union’s usual nefarious tactics, there isn’t exactly a way for me to vote with my feet, so, for the moment, I just remain a disgruntled member who will be ready to cross the picket line if and when the union declares a strike.