So today is the official opening ceremony of Murray Gell-Mann’s birthday conference held at the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore. 4 nobel prize winners attended including Prof Gell-Mann, Gerard t’Hooft, Kurt Wilson and CN Yang. Countless other physics professionals attended the conference including my old physics lecturer Rod Crewther.
For those of you who don’t know who Prof. Gell-Mann is, he won the 1969 Physics Nobel Prize for creating a system of identifying subatomic particles. His current partner Mary Mcfadden (fashion designer of some sorts, apparently the prestige of the fashion world) also attended. For more information click here http://bit.ly/bpxh2S
The event began with Prof Kwek Leong Chuan introducing the guest-of-honour who ironically was not Prof. Gell-Mann, but the president of NTU, Dr Su Guaning. His talk was a formality which bridged across to the very interesting Bertill Andersson. His humorous look at the research investment climate of Singapore was very well received by the audience where he finished of with a quote: “There is two types of research: Applied research and yet to be Applied Research”
From thereon, Mr Andersson acted as facilitator for the ceremony. In total there were 5 speeches given, being: Francis Yeoh, Teck Seng Low, Choy Heng Lai, Harald Fritzsch and George Zweig.
The first 3 talks revolved around key research institutes within Singapore, and the overall mission. Harald gave us a detailed scientific biography of the life of Murray Gell-Mann. Finally George Zweig ended with the aces.
I personally found Zweig’s to be most enjoyable with the perfect blend of humor and technicality. Through his talk, I received a glimpse of Prof Gell-Mann’s personality, generally comical much to the delight of the audience. In fact halfway through Zweig’s talk, Gell-Mann felt the need to interject over the definition and context of the word “real” !
All in all a certainly memorable and enjoyable event.
