I have written a number of anecdotal texts about colleagues. These were associated with birthday celebrations. Many of these are not available through the SLAC-SPIRES data base, and some which are available requires access to journals. Here I have put links to the pdf versions of these texts, and where available, to the power point files used in the presentations. I also provide a context for the presentation, and a few associated photographs. As advertised on the welcome page, I also include a link to word-files associated with my attempt to get a visiting scientist position for my cat.
Helmut Satz has been a friend almost since I began doing physics. He was the strongest theoretical physicist driving the early efforts to do collisions of ultra-relativistic nuclei. His efforts were initially focused on the CERN experiments, but he also provided much of the motivation for experiments at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory and with nuclei at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. These experiments search for new states of very high energy density matter: Quark Gluon Plasma and perhaps the Color Glass Condensate and Glasma. These forms of matter are described elsewhere in this website. Helmut organized a very influential meeting in 1980 at the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Bielefeld in Germany. This meeting had a dramatic impact on the direction of the careers of many us at the meeting. The first lattice gauge theory computations of finite temperature Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) were presented, and they showed a phase transition to the Quark Gluon Plasma. Three major figures in theoretical physics, T. D. Lee, “Papa” Migdal, and Gordon Baym attended and shared their wisdom. I had prepared work on the space-time picture of ultra-relativistic nuclear collisions and the first realistic estimates of the energy densities which might be achieved. This paper was done specifically for this meeting, but there was so much interesting work being presented that there was no time to present it. It was the first time I had been in Europe.
The power point file was done on the occasion of Helmut’s 70’th birthday:Satz
“Papa” Migdal, T. D. Lee and Helmut Satz. In the background is Gordon Baym. 1980
Helmut at Bielefeld about 1984
I met Keijo Kajantie at that meeting organized by Helmut Satz in 1980; Keijo and I became lifetime friends as a consequence of the scientific discussion we had there.
Keijo was described by his junior colleagues as very serious. We junior people would go out until the wee hours of the morning, particularly to the infamous “Ambassador’s Club”. One of my young Finnish colleagues who was rooming with Keijo made the mistake of waking him up early one morning after such an evening. With typical Finnish reserve, Keijo said nothing, just got up and went running.
Keijo and I began to work together on the space-time description of ultra-relativistic nuclear collisions. I have spent much of my life thinking about this problem.
My wife Alice and I visited Helsinki for three months in 1983. The picture on the left above shows the rally of the communists in front of the Lutheran cathedral near the city center of Helsinki. This is described in the paper I submitted for Keijo’s 60’th birthday, which is published in the proceedings of the Finnish Academy of Sciences.
Alice and I have wonderful memories of Finland. On the left is a photo taken at midsummer at Keijo’s summer place. Ulrich Heinz is a distinguished physicist, now at Ohio State University. Below is a photo of Alice and me at the Arctic School of Physics in Akaslampalo
Mayday, 1983 in Helsinki
Above: Ulrich Heinz enjoying the June sunshine at Keijo’s summer place.
Right: Alice and Larry at Akaslampalo
Keijo in his office in Helsnki
Volodya Gribov’s reputation preceded him. I knew of him from work which he had done on the theory of high energy scattering. I visited Leningrad for the first time in 1984. Gribov was not present at the time but I met his son, Leonya. Leonya was a co-author with Misha Ryskin and Genya Levin of a Physics Report which laid the foundations for much of the work I have done in the last ten years. Leonya died not too long afterwards in a mountaineering accident.
Gribov had the most forceful personality of any theoretical physicist I have known. This is not said lightly, since many theoretical physicists are not timid about expressing themselves. The manuscript here is for a memorial addition for Gribov.
Alice and Volodya
The photograph of Alice and Volodya was taken during a visit of Volodya to the University of Minnesota, where I was at that time on the faculty. He died relatively young, not too long afterwards, due to complications associated with emphysema. He was a very heavy smoker.
I knew Bikash Sinha professionally through his work with Dinesh Srivastava on electromagnetic particle production in ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions. This work is of high quality and has withstood the ravages of time. It is most remarkable because this was their first work in this area, it is seminal, and done with insight and care. Later, I helped Bikash get money from the Indian Rupee Foreign Currency fund to support a group of Americans going to a meeting in India, the first in the series International Conference on the Physics and Astrophysics of the Quark Gluon Plasma.
Me and Bikash together at a meeting in Brazil
There have now been about a half dozen such meetings in India, and this year Bikash is the lead organizer of the Quark Matter Meeting in India. This is the largest and most prestigious of meeting in the general area in which I do research. Bikash has done remarkable work in supporting this area of physics in India. He spearheaded the collaboration of Indian physicists at CERN-SPS, RHIC and the LHC. He has supported numerous schools and workshops for young people in India. He is currently director of the Saha Insitute in Calcutta.
The power point presentation is for his 60’th birthday held in Calcutta. It is a roast. The pdf version is the original version prior to submission for publication.
Walter Greiner is the most influential German theoretical nuclear physicist. He built and and supported a large group of theorists at the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Frankfurt. He is one of the founders of the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies. He has done seminal and very important work on the existence and properties of superheavy nuclei, and on theories of particles in strong fields.
I have known of Walter’s work since I was a graduate student as my thesis was in an area which he did pioneering work. I met Walter years later due to our mutual interest in ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions. Walter supported me for an Alexander von Humboldt prize at the University of Frankfurt, where I spent many happy months.
I gave the roast at Walter’s 70’th birthday. The power point presentation and the pdf file contain the content of the talk. It was done in the Frankfurt Ratskeller. I got to consummate one of my outstanding ambitions, which was to lead a group of Germans in song, swinging a beer back and forth in time to the music. It was great fun as you can see by the photo.
Please note the poem in the text. This was composed by both Alice and myself. I had originally thought I could steal some text from a German romantic, such as Goethe, but nothing fit the accomplishments and personality of Walter.
Walter Greiner
In the Frankfurt Ratskeller leading the audience to the tune “There’s a Hole in the Bottom of the Sea”
I met Vesa Ruuskanen through Keijo Kajantie on visits to Finland. I remember our first conversation was at a pool table in a hotel where there was a meeting of the Finnish physical society. Vesa and I would ski “together” on occasion. Vesa was a truly excellent cross country skier, and I am on the wrong side of mediocre.
Vesa did much of the early work on the hydrodynamic study of ultra-relativistic nuclear collisions. His work is always well thought out, and always done with care to detail.
The presentation here is for Vesa’s retirement.
Vesa Ruuskanen
I first met Adrzej Bialas through Helmut Satz and meetings at Bielefeld. Andrzej built and supported the Theoretical Physics Group at the University of Crakow. This was in the bad days of the Cold War. Andrzej was the principal organizer of the Zakpane school of high energy physics, which meets every year in the midst of the beautiful Tatra mountains. Years ago, it was very difficult to organize such a meeting because of shortages of everything imaginable.
The young people who have come through his group are absolutely top rate theorists, and this is largely due to Andrzej’s stewardship.
The power point presentation is for Andrzej Bialas 70’th brithday, given at the Crakow School of Theoretical Physics in Zakopane. I have also included an unpublished pdf version with text.
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Andrzej Bialas
When I first met him, he had developed an outstandingly clear understanding of the space-time dynamics particle production. I remember reading his papers over and over again. They were truly beautiful, and full of deep intuitive insight.
Andrzej also has a thoroughly wicked sense of humor. I remember him once pulling out a newspaper in the old days of Zakopane, explaining that many people were going abroad, and returning with foreign currency. This was when the currency was controlled, and it was not legal to have foreign currency. Of course, this was Poland, everything of value was sold with foreign currency, with great relish since it was not legal. If you wanted to buy anything, you put an ad in the newspaper saying “person recently returned from abroad wishes to buy ...” This was presumably to disguise the person’s intent to pay with foreign currency. He read a half dozen ads like this, and ended with one which said “Person partially returned from abroad wishes to buy..”
Evgenii Feinberg was a senior theoretical physicist from the Lebedev Institute. He was a genuinely nice man. I first met him at a meeting in Bad Honnef arranged by Richard Weiner. He came with Edward Shuryak, who I met there and who I am proud to count as a good friend. Evgenii suffered much under the Soviet system. In the prime of his research life, he was not allowed travel, as were most all of the good scientists.
His wife grew up in the US, being the daughter of Armenian immigrants. They were leftists and during the time of Stalin, her family returned, taking her with them. Of course, all of her family disappeared. For some unexplainable reason, she was allowed to live. She became an expert in American jazz, although she was never allowed to visit the US.
During the “economic reforms” of Gorbachev, Evgenii lost all the money he had saved up for the care of his daughter. His daughter had severe handicaps. The inflation rate and the poor pay of Russian scientists could not accommodate “modern times”.
Evgenii always had a positive way of looking at any situation, and a good sense of humor. I miss him very much. The text is for a memorial edition.
Yuri Sinyakov, me and Evgenii Feinberg at the Quark Matter meeting in Lenox, Mass. 1988
I respect TD Lee more than anyone I have ever met. His accomplishments are mind boggling. At the age of 31, he won the Nobel Prize for his work predicting the violation of parity. If parity were a symmetry of nature, then the laws of nature would look be invariant upon reflection in a mirror. The laws of nature are invariant under translation of coordinate and boosts to moving frames, so the violation of parity was totally unanticipated.
TD was the first to seriously consider ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions. He argued with Wick that such collisions might heat up the vacuum, and induce new states of matter.
TD initiated a program so that Chinese graduate students could come to the US to study. This has been most important in rebuilding Chinese graduate education after the destruction of the cultural revolution.
TD Lee holding up an artwork which represents the particles produced in nuclear collisions in the RHIC accelerator as seen by the detector STAR.
When I came to Brookhaven in 1999, I was fortunate to work with TD and Nick Samios. I was head of the Nuclear Theory Group, and TD was the Director of the Riken Brookhaven Center (RBRC). RBRC is a project funded by the Japanese to develop various aspects of the experimental and theoretical program at Brookhaven National Laboratory. One of its main thrusts is the training of young scientists.
TD got me involved in the workings of RBRC. For several years, every Thursday afternoon, I would sit down and listen to TD and Nick strategize on various aspects of physics and physics politics. I think I learned more from these meetings than I learned in my entire time in graduate school.
In November of 2006, there was an 80’th birthday celebration for TD at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Nick Samios and I were invited to the celebration, and asked to write a presentation on TD’s work in relationship to the physics of ultra-relativistic nuclear collisions, and RBRC. Nick gave the presentation which is also available as a pdf file.
Alice and I wrote a poem for this occasion, which can be seen in either version. It was impossible to find anything in the literature which fit our perception of TD, so we felt it was better to write something.
The poem has reference to Khan Tengri, a 7000 meter mountain in the Tian Shan range. The name of the mountain means King of the Spirit. It is truly one of the worlds most beautiful mountains.
Good Wines Recommended by Shuwa
It is true that Shuwa has a refined taste in good wines, although in recent years he drinks less. It is well known that cats have a much more refined sense of taste and smell than do humans. He still likes a good St. Emilion, suitably aired, and is now into Sicilian White Wine. He particularly likes Cusumano. He no longer drinks Grappa. He says it is bad for his liver.
Several years ago, a unique opportunity arose which might have allowed me to place Shuwa in an intellectually stimulating environment. The memo was written and passed to my superiors at the lab. I even got Jean Paul Blaizot, a distinguished French scientist with whom Shuwa had an affectionate relationship, to write a letter of recommendation. Sadly, as often happens at Government Labs, opportunities are lost. Shuwa did not get the position. The circumstances which motivated the writing of this memo have long since been corrected.
My cat Shuwa has always been an inspiration to me. He has constantly provided me with good ideas and honest criticism. He respects me and I respect him. He has known to take an interest in strings, but never an obsession. He sometimes has a difficult time understanding why people with PhD’s from fancy universities are so inclined, but being a cat, feels it is best not to be judgmental. He has heard string theorists can be mean if they are not properly admired
On the left, you see us thinking about our next project together. Sometimes, to do something clever, you have to think, Shuwa always says.
Shuwa has always been interested in higher education. His favorite expression is “The Higher the Better”. He has always been willing to confront those in positions of authority and provide them with what knowledge he has gained
Shuwa enjoying a fine Australian chardonnay
The most recent addition to my anecdotes is a pdf file of the after dinner talk I gave on the occasion of Edward Shuryak’s
60’th birthday. Edward is a very good friend for a very long time. I knew him during his time in Novosibirsk, and when he began applying to emigrate from Russia, I helped him make contact with Gerry Brown in Stony Brook, who arranged a faculty job for him.
Edward was one of the first people to think about quarks and gluons at finite temperature. He invented the words “Quark Gluon Plasma”. He is very creative, and with Edward you never have to explain anything twice.
This January 2008, Shuwa took a trip to that Great Winery in the Sky. He was 14 years old. I have not heard from him since he left, but I hope when I finally do, we will share a fine glass of French chardonnay.