CEREMCAM People: Patrick

I'd like to use some of these blog posts to highlight  my CERECAM colleagues. They are very interesting, talented academics. I'll begin with Patrick, who I've found easy to talk to.

Patrick is from Nigeria, having lived in both Ileife and Lagos. It's a shame that the world knows Nigeria mostly by the following export:

"Dear Sir,
Good day to you
My name is Joey Jones i am an American soldier, i am serving in the military of the 1st Armored Division in Iraq. I am now in Kuwait in the mean time, I and my partner moved funds belonging to Saddam Hussein, the total is (Twenty Five million US dollars) this money is being kept safe in a security company. Click on this link to read about even that took place here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2988455.stm


Basically since we are working for the American government we cannot keep these funds, but we want to transfer and move the funds to you, so that you can keep it for us in your safe account or an offshore account..."

Patrick in his office.

The 419 (or sometimes 411) scam, named after the relevant sections of Nigerian criminal code, has netted Nigerians some 5 billion dollars since the early eighties. Some estimate that it ranks as between the third and fifth largest revenue sources for Nigeria. Working on the premise that you really can't cheat an honest man, the scam apparently works on traditional Nigerian beliefs. Patrick tells me that in Nigeria a hand bag or even a wallet left carelessly in a car is quite safe. Instead people believe that one must "trick" people out of their possessions by exposing their moral failures.

At any rate, 419 scams are a shame, because there is much more to Nigeria. I've been fascinated with the stories Patrick tells me, here are a few examples.

The Nigerian people are very friendly and love to welcome and make people feel at home. This is a projection of the good qualities of the culture, and is completely genuine. However,  Nigeria is the most densely populated country in Africa and the fears associated with big city living, poverty, and inequity all work against Nigerian's welcoming nature. Patrick tells me that the open heartedness is much harder to encounter after dark. Personally, I don't know anything about Nigeria, but I would agree there is a welcoming nature in the parts of Africa I've been to.

Communication is easy in Nigeria, English is spoken nearly everywhere. The cost of living is low and quality of of life is high. Living expenses for a small family are typically less than $100 dollars per month. There are tremendous recreational opportunities; including beaches, natural history and cultural museums. Consumer goods are not taxed because oil revenues offset taxes. However, economic potential is wasted due to inconsistent electricity supply. A funny story Patrick told me was that he avoided studying computation because the power supplies were simply too inconsistent. So instead he does theory of the sort that can be done with pencil and paper.

Nigeria has a rich history and culture. It's a disservice for me to try and account for all of it, I really don't know much, but Patrick mentioned the Ife bronze head, an extraordinary piece of metal working skill, dating back to the end of the first millennium. He also told be a couple Yoruba proverbs, and I always like proverbs. 

In the presence of elders the head of the baby is straight.

Straight head?

Which is to say that things become easier in the presence of experienced people. Here the straight head refers to the position of a baby, riding on his or her mother's back. This is a common way to transport babies throughout Africa, when the head leans to far to one side or the other, it just can't be a good thing.

The laminar object that goes up, will come down.

By Patrick's account, this is saying that situations that are tough will eventually resolve.  I can see that, although that's not how I would interpret the American proverb, 'what goes up must come down'. I love that the object is laminar, as in layers, I think? 

Finally, I read a history of the Biafra wars not long ago, and it really was eye opening. My take would be its a classic case of an economically dominate ethnic minority literally being killed for their status. After much genocide, that minority (the Igbo) tried to form an independent state, Biafra, and that's the Biafran war. They lost, and Nigeria is Nigeria. The Igbo, Patrick tells me are famous business men throughout Africa. Unfortunately they do not always make their business selling things that are legal

A page from Patrick's notebook.

In terms of academic interests, Patrick works in applied math. Presently, he is proving theorems about a certain class of non-differentiable contact problems, essentially, demonstrating that solutions exist. Beyond that, Patrick is looking critically at the issue of regularization, and determining if it is indeed justified. Patrick has done a bit of teaching, and finds that he likes it, especially when the students are clever.

Finally, Patrick is a true intellectual, with tastes in arts and culture that are incredibly sophisticated. He reads classical literature (Toni Morrison, Sula, Faulkner, Sound and Fury, James Joyce, Ulysses), listens to jazz (Avishia Cohen, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Winton Marsalis) twentieth century classical music (Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Debussy, Ravel),  and is an accomplished  online chess player.

Phew, it all makes me feel like a little bit of a heathen. It's  good that Patrick has also seen a few episodes of CSI, and likes the movies of Leonardo DiCaprio. Otherwise, we wouldn't have much to talk about. But I'm working to corrupt him. I think I'll give him a few episodes of Deadwood to watch, and a TV on the Radio CD to listen to.

Work

My pass

I am a visiting academic at the University of Cape Town. See, it even says so on my identification card. Access to buildings on campus is tightly controlled with these cards. I assume it has some sort of RF ID chip, in addition to a magnetic strip on the back.

Jameson Hall

The University has about 23,500 students. Founded in 1829, it is South Africa's oldest college. I am finding it to be much the same as other campuses I've been on. Walk around and you'll see 18-25 year old people, out in courtship display. The campus has a bar; one of those impossibly grown up things we don't have on American campuses anymore. Some of the major halls are named after characters of dubious integrity. Like the centrally located Jameson Hall (right). At Cecil Rhodes' instigation, Jameson led a military fiasco to take the gold mines of Johannesburg from the Boers. It seems that Rhodes and company were so used to stealing from African tribes, they couldn't imaging that looting one more would be much trouble. Even if it was a tribe of Dutchmen. Look at the stairs. The campus is built on a hill side, I counted 291 stairs on the way to my office.

Smuts Hall

Then again, some buildings are named after people I like, such as Jan Smuts. In my opinion, he was a fair, intelligent, and resolute man. He was among the first of the Afrikaners to recognize that Africans were a fact of African life, and ignoring or denigrating them was not  helpful.  He also humiliated the British military machine during the second Boer war. To the left is a picture of his hall. Typical of many of the buildings, with a courtyard and ivy covered walls.

CERECAM

I am working in a place called 'Center for Research in Computation and Applied Mechanics', or CeReCAM. Folks here know a lot about the finite element method, and non-linear materials. Two things that are useful in my research. CERECEM has a special (access controlled) door; very professional. I feel like I'm  part of something good working here. Much of the center's activities are in service of engineering goals, which lately appeal to me. I'm not sure I'm going to determine what sea level will be in 100 years, but darn it, I probably could have figured out a better angle to graft a vein at for a bypass, or separate good from bad mine tailings. Ah well, if I never managed a 'misspent youth', I definitely have a leg up on the 'misspent career' thing.

A place to call "the office", I need that in my vocabulary.

Here is my office, and me. Even though it's spring here, I'm growing my fall beard. I suppose I'm confused. You can't see it in the picture, but that internet cable admits only the thinnest trickle of internet stuff. This is a problem.

Bad ice sheet model.

And here is a picture of what I've been working on. As the ice flows into a region where there is melting, the surface should lower. That's what melting does to glaciers. In my model, large amounts of melting can lead to the surface crossing over the bed.  That's bad, it crashes the model, and I'm trying to stop it. Finding a solution is taking longer than I'd like, but at least I know what I'm trying to accomplish. Nothing takes the amount of time I'd like it to. Not even in South Africa.