Finally, Broadband came to my home. I have waited for today for 5 years.... Before the introduction of Broadband, I cannot edit this blog from home. (I need to come to the university....) But now I can edit at home.
At the University, I feel I am working. I mean, I talk to students, answer the questions from them, printing papers to read, writing e-mails to colleagues and colloaborators... But I have no time to think at the university! So, I prefer to work at home because there is a plenty of time for thinking (but dangerously for sleeping too). When tired from calculations and debugging, I can take a walk around my home, which has nice hills and forests around with beauttiful views of the North Downs (Surrey Hills). Many wild animals such as rabits, foxes, deers, etc. and English wild flowers and trees are also refreshing my mind everytime. So, BT broadband, which allows me to work at home, is extremely useful to me.
I usually prepare my lecture at home. While preparing, many questions appear in mind for the things I thought I understood. These questions make me understand physics much more deeply. I agree, this is the experience of learning from teaching. So, giving lectures to studnets is very rewarding although it is very time consuming and sometimes very hard.
Today, I was preparing a lecture of quantum mechanics for next tuesday. The subject is about the scattering theory. I know there are two representations for the description of a free particle. When linear momentum is given, it is a plain wave. While, when angular momentum is given, it is the spherical Bessel functions with the spherical harmonics. Then, suddenly today, I have a question.... why in the presence of the central potential do we need to think about the partial wave expansion for the scattered wave function? Since the potential is rotationally symmetric, angular momentum is a good quantum number. We should then start from the wave function with good angular momentum! I thought for a while (about an hour?), but could not find the answer. So, I decided to take a bath. Then after 10 minutes or so (even after singing some Japanese old pop music), like Archimedes, the idea came down from the heaven (or somewhere)!
Well, it might be too expensive to take a bath for finding every new idea. But I manage to survive as a lecturer like this, and I like this kind of life very much. Thinking is what I like most, and surprisingly it is my job now! I thank God (and my employers) and the broadband for allowing me this.
