I will miss her..

She was a mentor, a friend, sister, counselor. It has been more a week and I am already feeling the loss. She was always so energetic and bubbly that even to last days of her life, I could not believe her when she said that she was leaving.  Lying down with her eyes closed and tablets inside her mouth, she practically shouted when her husband, Prof Nik called out that I was there. She's immediately swallowed the tablet and shouted "Huh...Siti is here.......?" In her pain, she still remembered to ask me about my researches. When I told her that I'm teaching STS for trainee teachers at IPG, she enthusiastically exclaimed that I should take the opportunity to do researches there. We talked for a while.  I should have talked more (Prof Nik reminded me not to make her talk too much) but anyhow ended up as the listener. She talked about her students, family and indicated that she might not be well again. While talking, she requested for more drinks and said that it tasted good that day.....

Allahyarhamah Prof Dr Khalijah Mohd Salleh was my supervisor when I was doing my post graduate studies in UKM. I first met her at the physics department (PPFG) in 2004 when I started my PhD. I came to her, determined with a research in mind, but she was so full of ideas which I finally accepted and adapted into my research. The first year was full of bickering between the two of us mainly about my researches. In April 2005, I came for my supervision and she asked me if I was ready to present at an international conference. I panicked but welcomed the idea of visiting India for the International Conference of Physics Education (ICPE) 2005. I was offered a poster presentation, and immediately prepared the poster. By the end of 2005, I presented an oral presentation at an international conference in Penang (CoSMEd). From there on I was presenting research papers locally and internationally such as at the ICPE 2006 (Japan), ICPE 2007 (Marrakech), SciEd Asia Pacific 2007 (Bangkok) and participated in the ALOP ASIA 2006 workshop. She was always with me, being supportive and listened patiently while I practiced my presentations.

The one thing I could not forget about her was that she was always trying not to burden me financially when she invited me to present at the international conferences. She would either be paying for my registration fees or tried to find financial supports so that I could attend these conferences. We always took advantage of these trips by visiting places, take short tours and enjoyed the foreign food.

ICPE 2006-Japan

Visit to Rajashtan after Alop Asia

Conducting a workshop at ICPE 2007 Marrakech

SciEd Asia Pacific 2007 Bangkok

With Prof Nik & Dr Sakinah during the ICPE2007 dinner in Marrakech 

Prof Khalijah had always been a very dedicated supervisor. She will take my work to her colleagues and get second opinions if she needed to. She respected my expertise in education field and was willing to give in and accepted my ideas. Her passion was in education researches and she was always trying to find ways to make physics easier and meaningful to her students, and relate the laws of physics to the Al Quran.

I know that I have not visited her often after completing my studies. Sometimes she would call me and asked me to present at workshops or give talks to school children. I would also visit her, but not as often as before.. So why I would I miss her..? Well....before she leaves, I always felt that I have someone to turn to if I ever needed any support; professionally or even emotionally. At the back of my mind, she will always there if I ever needed her. But she is gone now..so I will have to spread my wings and fly on my own now..as far as she has taught me to. To Allahyarhamah Prof Khalijah, thank you so much for all that you have done. Al Fatihah..

True beauty: Blue Mountain

It was the school holidays again and we traveled to Sydney to visit our son, Ridhwan. On the fourth day of our visit, we decided to have a look at the infamous Blue Mountain and rented a car to drive a town called Katoomba. It was a long and exhausting trip but as we passed through Katoomba town, we were rewarded by the most beautiful sight of the Blue Mountain. Everyone were tired after the long journey, but as my son pointed to a place at the far end of the town, we were totally mesmerized...! The whole valley was blue and it was a picture of beauty...something that I have never seen before. The feeling that I felt when I saw the Blue Mountains was the same as what I felt when I passed trough a small, dark tunnel and see the magical Taj Mahal at the other end of it. Hypnotised, wonderment..there were just no words that give justice to its beauty...........

Of course the question came into my head was, why blue? I argued with my son that the phenomenon was not due to the reflection of blue light from the leaves of the trees, as I did not see any blue leaves around me. Being myself, I will never be happy until I get the answers to my question, so rushed to a gift shop nearby and looked for souvenir books that explain the blue colour of the mountain. Then I found it..! The Eucalyptus tree..the gum.!

So my next mission was to look for the trees. How does it look like? I believed the trees that I found in this picture was one of them. The leaves were green, so why blue?

Syafiqah & me on a misson to search for the gum tree (nothing blue found..)

This is how it looked like from above. Slightly purplish..still not blue. The air around the trees seemed clear and normal and not hazy like in the first picture.

Here they are..! But still not blue..

Well, the explanation is like this. The mountain has high density of eucalyptus tree (as seen in the picture above) which release gum in the form of tiny droplets of eucalyptus vapour. White light is made up of several colours; red, orange,blue etc...with red having the largest wavelength and blue having one of the shortest wavelengths. The atmosphere is filled with finely dispersed droplets of oil, dust particles and water vapour will scatter short-wave length rays of light which are predominantly blue.


This type of scattering is called the Rayleigh scattering. Water and dust particles are often quite large for Rayleigh scattering to occur. However, the abundance eucalyptus vapour in the atmosphere allows Rayleigh's scattering as their sizes are smaller than the wavelength of the colour scattered. So when white light enters the particle, mostly blue colour will be scattered as blue has a very small wavelength (about 400 nm compared to 700 nm in red light). However, a different type scattering (Mie scattering) occurs for red light  that results in red sky during sunset. 

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/atmos/blusky.html

So what we actually saw was the end product of the scattering, which is like a blue haze. Having figured out the reason for the blue colour gave me the satisfaction of enjoying the scenic view of the Blue Mountain. I'm glad that the authorities have taken measures to preserve the trees. The Blue Mountain is now in the World Heritage list. The view is breathtaking, and I hope that it will remain so..