The person who's a staff member, and
he's already down as a professor here,

is Gabor Sanyi, spelt Gabor's Christian
name, G-A-B-O-R.

And

Sanyi is C-S-A-N-Y-I.

We can write them down from here.
6
00:00:40,6 --> 00:00:47,914
And the head of the material science is
Chris Pickard.

P-I-C-K-A-R-D.

I didn't know.

Chris is now head of the material
science department.

I didn't know that.

Chris.

Picard.

Yes.

Head of department, yes.

I didn't know that.

Yes, yes, I did.

Yes, yes.
18
00:01:14,7 --> 00:01:19,446
My family has dinner with he and his
wife two days ago.

Two, three, three days ago.

I still have close contact with Chris.

Chris helped me the first the starting
collaboration for using CASTEP to study

non-linear optical property that Chris
has helped and also Chris
23
00:01:48,8 --> 00:01:54,147
went to Taiwan for one year in my
university.

Good, yes, yes.

Ah, okay, here's Professor Gabo San Yi.

Ah, right, right.

Okay.

Yes, yes.

There were some earlier, it's a more
senior famous professor,

Is it the in material science department
of Oxford, this famous David Pettyford,

Professor Pettyford?

Of course, yes, he was in our group,
yes.

Oh, I see.

What, when, roughly when was that?

Oh, it must have been the 1960s.

Oh, right.

I mean, I came in fifty-four and he was
one of that early decade.

I see.

I see.

I think it must have been then.

Yes, it was, yes.
42
00:02:50,70 --> 00:02:50,470
I see.

Right.

Because we had rather few English
students, but people from the rest of

the world, they were more interested.

I see.

Then how about Professor John Robertson?

John Robertson in engineering
department.

Is he also a TCM member?

What is the name?

John Robertson.

Robertson.

Robertson.

Yes.

No, I don't know.

Okay.

Not that I know of.

I saw him in his Cavendish event.

It's 25 years since I retired.

Right,

Good.

Well, I think it's good to have that in
at this point.

Yes.

I would like to talk a little bit about
some other work that I did.

From the early 1980s, from about 1980
onwards to about early 2000, I was very

active in European physics.

There was a cultural gap and a
historical gap

and so on.

About shearing codes, I mean, at that
time, electronic structure calculations,

as from CASTEP, I mean, CASTEP only came
after 1990.

But this already starting in 1980, I
talked with you about orthogonalized

plane waves.

They started in 1950.

And then in near 1980, the Bell Labs
publishing all the pseudo potentials in

the whole periodic table.

And the other thing, of course, that
computers became

much more available around that time.

We didn't talk about that, about
workstations.

So this was a developing situation.

Now I just forget what I was going to
say.

Psy-K?

Are you going to say something about the
Psy-K?

No, I was about...

This is about computing there.

Right, okay.

Europe, solid-state physics, and
computing.

I see.

Together.

Okay.

Towards the end of the 1970s, two things
happened.

the expansion of computing facilities.

Both large machines, Atlas machine, one
of them was called, I remember, and at

Darsbury Lab was, it had been a nuclear
physics lab, but nuclear physics had

sort of run out of things to do.

And it got a big machine, a computer,
and it reinvented itself as a computer center.

I see.

Then also, Harwell, something similar
happened, and there was a, I can't

remember the name, a laboratory just on
the other side of the fence, a separate...

Russellful Appleton.

Appleton.

Appleton lab, yes.

I don't know, yes.

And they're just on the other side, the
next, on the same street, just next over

the fence.

And having a big machine was one of
their aspects.

So computation expanded.

What obvious, I mean, it was the
development of pseudo potentials and so

on, the calculations that you could do,
and with machines that could quickly do

bigger structures.

So that was one of the developments.

And

Now, with codes, it takes quite a lot of
effort to develop a code, as you know.

The question is, who's going to use it?

In the United States, the tradition was
that a code was developed by a group and

only the group used it.

people who had developed, who were part
of that group, they could use it when

they went elsewhere.

But I don't know whether they got the
upgrades and they certainly were not

allowed to share it.

So there were these little tight groups,
each having their own code,

orthogonalized plane waves, I mean there
were

whatever, APWs mostly.

And this was the United States tradition
of these tight groups.

Right.

Now, that didn't work in Europe.

We were at a more primitive stage.

People didn't write their own codes.

I think there was somebody in

Scandinavia or somebody in Belgium that
started to write code, but they didn't

have the power.

They didn't have just isolated person.

And not the kind of thing that research
councils wanted to put money in.

It was just calculation.

I mean, negative image.

And

I thought this was the wrong way to go.

I thought the right way was to share.

And there were one or two people who had
been in Cambridge in the TCM group and

then went elsewhere, in Belgium or
France.

And what I saw was

opportunities for computational physics.

I was a member of a Max Planck Research
Institute in Stuttgart on solid-state

physics and chemistry of materials.

It's interesting, physics and chemistry
going together in Germany.

and I was there from about 1978 as a
visiting, permanent visiting member.

They had this system.

I had a status within the Max Planck
Gesell Society.

I was a member, permanent member of this
institute, but I didn't get salary.

But what I did get, I could visit at any
time I liked and they would pay all my

expenses, but not a salary.
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00:11:46,6 --> 00:11:50,710
So this was an interesting and very,
very useful and so I did.

I went every one or two years for two or
three weeks and so I developed quite

good connections with them.

And I could see this problem about not
becoming computational, because

computation was becoming necessary.

And so, yes, the continental, well,
first of all, the continent is divided

into small countries.

And Germany itself was just

small states until the 1870s when it was
united by Bismarck.

So each one has its own university.

And they did not collaborate together.

I mean, although Czechoslovakia and
Germany speak the same language,

largely, the Czech part of
Czechoslovakia, they speak German.

And in the rural areas, there is another
language, but it's basically German.

And that also carries on around the
Balkan Peninsula, because until 1918,

there was the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

as not just the British Empire, but
Austro-Hungarian Empire that stretched

from Vienna southwards through Turkey
and a lot of that other area.

And so there were connections, but
computational work was not part of it.

And the groups working together was not
part of it because they were separate

countries, different research
organizations.

So it was my mission to lick them all
together.

And we had from about 1980 a European
Physical Society, and that became more

active, and I became active under that
umbrella.

So I did a lot of travel in the 1970s,
no, in the 1980s and then in the 1990s

and a little bit beyond.

After I retired in 1998, I went to New
Zealand for one or two years, then came back.

And so I was active

in retirement in this kind of work.

Not that I did for my PhD thesis, I did
do calculation.

I did orthogonalized plane wave band
structure calculation, but I was never a computationalist.

I had graduate students and postdocs who
were much better at it than I was.

And so

What I had done in Cambridge and then in
England to some, I mean it wasn't only

me, but other people also developing
computational physics.

And especially then at Harwell, because
as I say, a computational center there

and then and so on.

So

In Britain, it was, computation was well
developed with two large centers at

Harwell and at, what's the other one?

Darsbury.

Darsbury, yes.

And this didn't exist on the continent.

Oh, nowhere.

And I, well I,

I suppose I preached they should do
computation.

And I was active through the European
Physical Society and the solid-state

Division of the European Physical
Society.

I used this as a platform to visit and
at conferences and just

spread this message and the shared
experiences and visits to Cambridge by

young people and so on.

So that was my important work in the,
especially in 1970s, 1980s, 1990s especially,

And then already, and then in the 2000
for 10 years.

So that was, yes, it was, that was, yes,
part of what I was doing, yes.

This list of TCM group, this is actually
from 2018.

I don't know, people don't like paper
anymore.

They just do it, it's all online.

I still like paper.

So it doesn't exist on paper unless
somebody prints it out.

But you see, I mean, these are senior
people, the staff or otherwise have sort

of some permanent position.

These here are the graduate students,
and this whole middle piece is

Somebody else.

I mean, these are post-docs who get paid
as post-docs, but that's only a small number.

Yes, but look, and but you see, this is
where Gabor and these other people are,

and they continue to think of themselves
as connected with TCM.

Yes, And we make sure that they're on
our list.

Right, yes.

Yes.

And that when, I don't know, I mean, how
many of them get all the information

about the seminars and so on, I don't
know.

I'm not in charge of that thing.

But they think of themselves as
connected with TCS.

Yes, yes.

And we think of them connected with us.

So that's quite an important thing.

There's a lot of names there.

Yes, yes, yes.

And so on the European level, I was busy
developing these links.

You see, the thing about computing, it
only requires one person.
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00:20:01,935 --> 00:20:06,6
It requires access to a machine, but

In northern Italy, there's a very small
country just to the east of Italy.

I forget its name.

It's a very small country.

It has one city.

And that one city has a university.

And that university had one physicist
who did electronic structure calculations.

How can he compete with, be it to the
search forefront compared with American

groups and so on?

The answer is he can, because I linked
him up with the, what's the

international land in northern Italy?

International land?

Sorry.

Northern Italy.

Trieste.

Trieste.

Yes.

I linked him up with Trieste.

It's only just a short train ride.

Because Trieste is on the border of
Italy and he's just a tiny country.

And that makes a difference.

One person can, if he has computing
access and codes are available, then one person

can be effective.

And that was what I was preaching.

And there was somebody in Tallin.

You don't know where Tallin is.

It's in Estonia.

Do you know where Estonia is?

You know where Leningrad is?

Yes, yes.

And on that Baltic Sea, there are three
small countries, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

Right, right.

And then you get down to Poland.

Right.
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00:22:08,94 --> 00:22:08,428
Yeah.

Yes.

That's one of the things about
computing.

that during the 1970s, two things
developed.

First of all, at the end of the 1970s,
there was the Rutherford lab and there

was the- Dasbury.

That we just talked about.

Dasbury.

Dasbury lab, yes.

and with big machines.

And so that it was possible for somebody
in any university to have a research connection.

And these labs, they worked to create
opportunities for people in the universities.

that they were called CCPs,
Collaborative Computing Projects for
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00:23:24,4 --> 00:23:27,774
solid-state electronic structure, it's
CCP9.

So the chemists had one for sharing.

Of course, the chemists, yes, they were
already

When I was a graduate student, there was
somebody in chemistry department who was

using the Exac machine a lot at night.

Yeah, that's something computing that we
should talk about in a moment.

Right.

And now I've lost the thread of what I
was saying.

That's right.

There were the two centers and they had
these CCP.

CCP, computational collaborative
projects.

And these were organized and so that
there was there were two people at who were

who ran CCP-9, that was their job, to
look after the solid-state computational

electronic structure calculations.

There were these other CCPs for other
computational things, but CCP-9 was for

electronic structure.

The two people, one was from Belgium and
the other one was from Poland, a couple.

The man has died in the meantime, and
the wife is gone back to her native Poland.

It's long attire, of course, right now,
but it's back in Poland.

So this was one development.

The CCP organizations that they were

going out to the universities, not just
waiting for them to come.

The other thing that happened, of
course, was the development of

workstations, small computers that were
a lot of computing power for one person.

But usually, I mean,

Well, we have two computer rooms with
two of these.

I don't know whether we're still using
them.

I think so.

I don't know.

The room or the machine?

The machine, of course.

Every few years, new one has to be...

Yes, but I'm not sure whether in the new
Cavendish we have anything like that.

I don't know.

But yes, that small computers, but quite
powerful.

for a research group or maybe one person
and his team forming a team, a group.

So that came in around 1980.

And that was the other big

heavy computing development.

And then of course the codes came with
it and more than I do about Mike Paine

and developing CASDEP.

First he did that just for himself, but
he could see that it was forming.

This was his postdoc year in the United
States, started developing CASDEP, came back,

continue to work and then started having
a group of research students around him,

both to develop the code and then to do
things with us.

And so this was an example of a wider
movement that was happening in different

universities and so on.

So these powerful workstations

had their place and then these
development groups.

But whereas in the United States they
were inward looking and just kept the

code for themselves, our tradition, well
this was partly the research council,

CCP9 was computational calculation
project 9 for condensed method

electronic structure.

So it was partly policy from on top.

and partly tradition that we wanted.

And partly the history that Europe,
including Britain, was fragmented, but
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00:28:24,4 --> 00:28:25,672
particularly on the continent.

It took a long time for after World War
II for these things to develop.

A long time.

And so both the workstations and the

And their use and doing computational
physics was something it was developing.

And I was supporting it with my travel
and talks and so on.

Yes, I think that was something
important that I did.

I linked the groups together instead of
just being national.

For example,

There was a young woman, French, and she
had done her PhD in France.

Now, her supervisor was French, but then
got a job in Switzerland.

Switzerland and France and Germany, I
mean, those borders are almost non-existent.

Well, they do exist, yes.

But anyway, this student of the

one who'd moved to Switzerland, part of
a research group there, she could get

any money that she would like or needed
to visit her PhD supervisor in France.

But because her supervisor was just
across the border in Switzerland, and I

had to pay for her to visit her previous
supervisor through the

through Psy-K, we call it, our European
electronic structure, movement, project, yes.

It's appalling, you know, that if you're
French,

You can travel anywhere in France, but
nowhere, not even to Switzerland, across

the border.

I mean, you know that the big storage
ring is half in France and half in Switzerland.

Yes, So that was...

Yes, so there was a lot to do there, to
link people together on the

computational side, and using the
computational side to link people

together as people.

Yes, this one man in this small country
that I have, his name I forget, just

east of Trieste.

It's just such an example.

An extreme example.

Or one person in Taiwan.
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00:31:42,335 --> 00:31:47,7
That's how you continue to be part of
the world of electronic structure.

Yes.

You recognize it.

Yes.

You don't try to fight it.

You don't try to say, oh, I will do it
all myself.

You just, that's what it takes.

Yes.

That's what you do.

Yes.

And you arrange your life in such a way
that you have friends who continue to

invite you and so on.

Yes.

Well, I was doing a bit the same.

I was very much inspired by you and also
the platform and the connection you created.

And you also affected Professor
Terrakura who set up a network in Japan.

He was here and he noticed this and was
impressed, yes.

And I think he took the idea home.
384
00:32:48,435 --> 00:32:56,9
I haven't visited Japan since then, but
I think he did things with it.
385
00:32:56,9 --> 00:32:59,946
Yes, I visited once, but it was not a
sign, it was a very short visit.

It was a conference and visiting him.

That's right, Japan was a bit, yeah, I
had that feeling.

Not strong on computation.

A bit like Germany and France.

They were slow to think of computation
as a high status.

You will understand all that.

Now with Professor Terracura's efforts

It's the computational research in Japan
is regarded to be an important way of

important science.

And he is a leading person.

Yes, indeed.

Good.

I didn't know.

I didn't know the situation in Japan.

Yes.

Good.

He was very well respected because so
many younger generations benefit from

what he has done.

Well, I think we've covered a lot of
ground.

We can think to see if there's some
extra point, but I think basically we have

covered computational physics.

Yes.

Good.

And this is a very successful session.

I would like to see it printed out.

Yes.

Okay, I will do that.

And then we can do small editing.

Yes.

Okay.