Enlightening the World from NUS (19 April 2005)

19 April was a day filled with excitement and fun as the Department of Physics at the National University of Singapore participated in the worldwide light relay in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Albert Einstein's death. Much preparation work was done before this big event such as in coordinating with the colleagues in the sending country, and in looking for a partner in the receiving country to ensure the continuity of such a grand propagation. Even on the actual day, several rehearsals were carried out to guarantee the smooth execution of the optical relay.

In the evening of this big occasion, colleagues from our department and physicists from the Institute of Physics, Singapore (IPS) - a constituent body of the Singapore National Academy of Science, gathered at the conference room awaiting to receive the signal from the sender in Taiwan. It was certainly a thrilling experience waiting for something to happen in a cold and dark meeting room.

With patience, the telephone rang at 7:00pm arousing the interests of all the physicists in the room. "What does the sender, Professor Ching-Rag CHANG have to say to us in Singapore for such a meaningful occasion? "Everyone was waiting unwearyingly for the messages. By using a speaker phone, every physicist in the room clearly heard the conversation between Prof CHANG and the Head of our department Prof Choo Hiap OH. We are thankful to the encouragements given by our colleagues in Taiwan and we look forward to more collaboration work with them. At the end of the conversion, the flash of light wandered across the conference room and our 3-dimensional space became bright indicating the start of party with food and drink - the Singaporean style.

Although the mood of celebration had flooded every corner in our conference room as well as in our hearts, we did not forget our duty to relay the light to our successor. Without hesitation, we made a rehearsal call to Professor Masno Ginting at Jakarta to make sure that the communication channel was viable. The actual call was then made at 7:20pm to propagate the light to Indonesia. We are glad to know that our colleagues in Indonesia are doing well and we also look forward to more collaboration work with them.

Yes we did not fail our duty in ensuring the continuity of this optical propagation across Singapore. We were relived and the party continued. Our next excitement was to view on the Internet the progress of light propagation across the entire globe. This was certainly an occasion filled with fun, joy and satisfaction which we would remember for a long time.

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