University of Maryland since 1962

• I was no longer a student. I was paid for the job I was performing. In addition to my teaching and other university duties, I had to construct my own research program starting from the academic background I built while I was a student starting from my high school years.
  1. My Princeton page describes how I constructed my own research program after Princeton.

  2. Research life is not easy for me. Is it easy for anyone else?

     Click here for the challenges I had to face since I came to Maryland.

  3. In research, the ultimate game is to become famous. The easiest way to become famous is to associate my name with the people who are already famous.

     In my business, the ultimate name is Albert Einstein. If I sing Einstein, are you going to listen? Click here.

• I had to get married and had to build my family. In 1963, I met the girl whom I met during my freshman year in Korea (1954). In Korea, the college year starts in March, instead of September in USA. I spent one semester at a university in Korea before becoming a freshman at Carnegie Tech (in September 1954). Marrying a girl you met during the freshman year. How else can you get married?

  Our son was born in 1965. We sent him to Princeton in 1983. We now have one grandson and granddaughter. They also live in the Washington area, and we (six of us) meet often for family dinner.

The campus of this university is 15 kilometers north of the Capitol of the United States.

• Washington, DC. The most rewarding aspect of coming to this University was that its campus is only 15 kilometers from the White House. When I came to this area 1962, the Soviet Union was very strong, and Nikita_Khrushchev appeared to be the most influential person in the world.

  After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Washington became de-facto capital city of the world, and it became an international city, with many interesting visitors from the world.

  1. New York City is only three hours of train ride from Washington.

  2. There are two international airports serving the Washington area. It is convenient to fly to the places in the world.

• This University has an interesting history.
  1. Abraham Lincoln is known as the greatest president of the United States. While he was the president (1861-1865), he distributed the government-owned lands for construction of new colleges in every state. The colleges were mostly for agriculture, the major industry at that time. This aspect of Lincoln is not well known.

     The Maryland College of Agriculture was set up in 1856 as a cow college before Lincoln's presidency. Lincoln's plan allowed this obscure school to expand to become one of the major universities in the world. Here is a brief history of the University.

  2. The agricultural tradition still exists on campus. The animal house is located near the center of the campus. Let us look at some animal pictures.

  3. University Barn is the "must see" spot on campus.
  4. Not Bull fighters. They are bull lovers.
  5. More Photos of the cow college tradition.

  The campus of 1938, with enough empty lands. The construction process is continuing even these days.

• 1864. Maryland legislature voted to accept the Morris grant, commonly known as Abraham Lincoln's land grant. The college received a city-sized land from the federal government. I came here in 1962, I witness construction activities everyday.

• 1916 and 1917. The State of Maryland took full control of the college and changed its name to the University of Maryland.

• 1935. Curly Byrd became the president of the University, and was the president until 1964.

  He is the one who transformed the University from a cow college to a ranking university in the United States. He had a talent in impressing the state legislature for his numerous construction projects. He built many dormitory buildings.

  1. For one year, he received enough funds for both library and stadium, but he combined both of these funds to build a huge stadium. These days, the university's football stadium is called the

  2. Byrd Stadium. This is the biggest college foot ball field in the world. The cow college image is gone, but the University of Maryland is still regarded as a "foot ball" college.

  3. The sport facilities are still expanding, with these indoor facilities. The construction of this building was funded by the ComCast Cooperation. This company thinks it can make money from this investment. I do not know how, but the company should know how.

• In 1954. Curly Bird retired. Before his retirement, he was able to convince the Maryland legislature for additional funds for the library. The construction of the library was completed in 1958, and it is called McKeldon Library. It is located at the center of the University, and there is a beautiful mall in front of this library.
  1. McKeldon Library and the Mall.
  2. Talent Show. A student is showing his talent.
  3. Campus Walkway along the Mall.
  4. Main Administration Building is at the opposite end of the Mall.

• 1952, while he was still the president, Curly Byrd decided to build a first-class physics department, and called John A. Wheeler of Princeton for an advice. At that time, Wheeler had a young student named John S. Toll. Toll came to the University in 1953 and got things moving.
  • Toll with Wheeler in 2001, forty eight years after he came to the University of Maryland.

  By 1965, when he left the Department to become the president of the Stony Brook campus of the New York state university system, Maryland's physics department became one of the largest in the world.

• In 1980, Toll came back to the University of Maryland as the chancellor of the Maryland University System. He used to become very happy whenever I invited Eugene Wigner from Princeton.

  1. My photo with Toll and Wigner (1986).

  2. My collaboration with Wigner.

• In 2001, the physics building was named after him, and is now called "John S. Tall Physics Building."

• These days, many capitalists are coming to College Park, and they are constructing high-rise buildings. Are they going to transform this college town into a business center? I do not know. In either case, things are changing everyday.

  I was still a young man in 1972 when I had this photo with the students in the honors program. I was their advisor.

• I came to the University of Maryland in 1962, and became a professor emeritus in 2007, after spending 45 for teaching and other universities. My job is still to become famous in order to lift up the reputation of the university. I still have my office at the University and publish my papers with the university address.

  1. Faculty Photo of 1963, ten months after I came to the University.

  2. with Students in honors program (1972). I like students because I regard myself as one of them.

  3. Elementary Particles Research Group (1973).

  4. Departmental Christmas Party (1976).

     In academic dress (1990).

  5. Academic Robe. I sometimes had to attend commencement ceremonies (1990).

  6. Popular Teachers invited to a student party (2000). With me is Satindar Bhagat, who also came to the UMD in 1962. He was always a good teacher, but I was sometimes.

  7. Coca-Cola Cans. I used to collect Coca-Cola cans from different parts of the world. These days, I cannot carry them. Thus, I have to find some other item I can carry on my carry-on bag. Please tell me if you have suggestions.

  8. Home page. You are invited to my home page. The University of Maryland has been very nice to me.

• I would be less than fully honest if I tell my life as a professor has been without problems.
  1. I had been a student with scholarships and fellowships before coming to Maryland. It was my first time to be paid for the job I was performing. It became stressful. However, everybody goes through this essential step in his/her life.

  2. I was a young man when I joined the University, and most of my senior colleagues were nice and helpgul to me. Most of them got their PhD degrees from prestigious universities.

     They were all No. 1 boys/girls in their high school classes with their Herod Complexes. Each individual was afraid of anyone else becoming more famouns than himself/herself.

  3. Among the physics faculty members at the University of Maryland, there were a number of people who applied for their graduate programs at Princeton (known as Einstein's place) but were turned down. When I applied in 1958, I was one of the fifteen students chosen from more than 300 applicants. This tells the competition ratio during the 1950s.

     Two of my Maryland colleagues, who got turned down from Princeton but got their PhD degrees from other prestigious universities, were determined to destroy me. One of them, with the support from the other, wrote a nasty report (totally irrational reasoning) on my published papers.

     I can mention the names of those two colleagues of mine, but I choose not to. It is useless to mention those who got turned dowm from Princeton and whose names you cannot recognize. Their reports delayed my promotion from associate to full professor for a record-making period.

  4. I was able to shut them up by publishing my papers with Eugene Paul Wigner (1902-1991). He was No. 2 man at Princeton. Needless to say, the No. 1 man was Albert Einstein (1879-1955). Click here to see how I became Wigner's student after I left Princeton.

     In addition, those Kim-Wigner papers allowed me to construct the following scientific genealogy of Princeon.

     

     Click here for the background story of this figure.

  5. Earlier on this webpage, I talked about the nasty report produced by my departmental colleagues. I was able to transform that report to the fortune described above.

Other Important Places in the Washington Area

• City of Washington, DC. The capital city of the United States.

• Mount Vernon. George Washington's residence 20 kilometers south of Washington.

• Annapolis, 60 km east of Washington, home of the U.S.Naval Academy.