Tuesday, 13 December, 2011 Joyce's speech Bruce originally wrote a speech for me to read about him. Quite a control freak, isn’t he? But I am sure he knew that I wouldn't just read out what he wrote for me. (Sorry, Bruce.) So here goes -- When Bruce asked me to speak today, I was honored and surprised. There are probably only a couple of persons here who are further away from retirement than me. And indeed, on the surface, Bruce and I cannot be more different – in terms of our age, research fields, and research style. On top of all that, Bruce doesn't even like physics, and I have never taken a single systems control course - ever. Against all odds, Bruce and I get along very well and have become very good friends. I first met Bruce when I joined the department about 4 years ago. Jonathan assigned him to be my out-of-group mentor. In one of our first meetings, Bruce asked me to explain my research using block diagrams. Soon after, he asked me to explain electromagnetics to him, also sometimes using block diagrams. I think I passed those tests, so we became friends. We would regularly meet over sandwiches or coffee and share gossip, how to do things, ideas, and so on. Eventually, Raymond and Bruce made me an honorary member of the control group. Bruce and I even wrote a paper together, though we didn’t submit it. I am particularly proud that I received an acknowledgement in Bruce's most recent paper on long chains of vehicles. I never thought my name would appear in a control theory journal! What I admire the most about Bruce, and maybe one of the reasons why we get along, is that he thinks precisely. If I can't explain something to him, then I probably don't understand the concept or issue very well. It is always refreshing for me to talk to him, and I almost always gain some new perspectives through our discussions. Bruce has made me rethink physics and science. Bruce doesn't like physics because it is not systematic and few people use or talk about it precisely. He once told me that he didn't like how a physics textbook needs a lot of text to explain very few equations. For example, there are no derivations of Maxwell's Equations -- they are someone else's theory based on observations. So the theory can change, which means the equations are not necessarily true or real (we’ve also had many discussions about what is "real"). Moreover, physicists have the habit of coming up with and doing many things to equations without proper justification. This also irritates Bruce a lot. Bruce thinks if you can't prove something, it is not real. That’s why he got into system theory, in particular, control theory. He likes how everything there can be self-contained, logical, and axiomatic -- one result follows another. So what he discovers there can be pure and "real" truths. I also admire that, in spite of his many accolades, Bruce is one of the most modest and down-to-earth persons I know. I think a reason why he asked me to speak today is because I am not qualified to talk about his technical achievements. Needless to say, there are very many. I don’t know much about control theory, but someone who has accomplished so much must have asked very good questions, worked very hard, and genuinely enjoyed what he was doing for a long time. As I close, I wonder what Bruce must be thinking and feeling now. Bruce did all three of his degrees at U of T. He left Toronto in 1975, wandered around the world for 9 years, and found enlightenment in control theory. He came back as a professor in the control group in 1984. Bruce has been at U of T for a long while and has done a lot of work here, so I imagine he must be feeling a bit nostalgic. But being eternally curious, I am sure he is flagging questions about this speech to ask me later. Finally, he must be relieved by not having to teach any more undergraduate courses! Thank you, Bruce, for being a wonderful mentor and friend. I hope you'll continue to stop by frequently so we can gossip. I hope you will enjoy this new phase of your life and will have more time to spend with Jing and Lian. Have a happy and fulfilling retirement! Bruce -- would you like to say a few words? My speech
When Zvonko Vranesic retired in 2004, at an event like this, in this room in fact, he said in his speech that he hadn’t wanted to be a professor, he had wanted to play chess. I myself had never imagined becoming a professor. In fact, something happened in high school that suggested stand-up comedy. In an English course we all had to give speeches on topics of our choosing. My speech was on the abominable snowman. I didn’t intend it to be funny in the slightest, but it caused uproarious laughter in the classroom. After it was over and I was walking away down the hallway, I heard someone behind me say, "His delivery is just like Bob Newhart’s." By contrast, two years ago I attempted a Chinese joke in my ECE431 class. Dead silence. Thus I’m only inadvertently funny -- I’m funny when I’m not trying and not funny when I am trying. So stand-up comedy will not be my main retirement activity. That’s the extent of my retirement plans so far. I wish to express my gratitude to several people and tell a few stories. First, my PhD advisor, Murray Wonham. Murray set the highest standard for creativity, rigor, and clarity of technical writing. One Sunday during my PhD period I was working on a theorem statement in the grad student room. Murray too was working in his office. I took my theorem statement to him, not the proof -- just the statement. He read it and said, "No," and handed it back. That’s all he said. I slunk back to my desk and tried again. I’m grateful to Murray for this introduction to existential and universal quantifiers. Tas Venetsanopoulos was on my PhD qualifying exam committee. Tas asked me this question: Suppose you periodically sample a signal. When can you reconstruct the entire signal from the sample values? I answered, it seems unlikely you could ever do that. Tas looked at Murray. Murray said, "He’s a mechanical engineer." Then, as I recall it, although maybe it was only in a nightmare, Tas got me to try to derive the sampling theorem. I’m grateful to Tas for letting me pass. Adel Sedra was on my PhD examination committee. My thesis had to do with uncertainty in component values. As you may know, control theorists like pretentious names for concepts, and Murray had suggested the name structural stability. Adel tried to get me to admit this was just saying that the darn thing would still work despite component variations, something electronics engineers would require without making a big deal of it. I don’t remember if I made that admission. I’m grateful to Adel for letting me pass. Then I’m grateful to Sarah Cherian, first because she typed my PhD thesis, on an IBM Selectric. And I’m grateful to her for a second reason, but that second reason requires a little story. I got to the age of 41 without being married, or even being very close to being married. I wanted to think that control theorists weren’t attractive to women, but there were too many counterexamples. When I was 41 I won a fellowship to do research in Japan. I was there for 5 weeks. My host was Hidenori Kimura, then at Osaka University. During my visit to Japan, Hide and I went to a workshop in the lovely northern city of Sapporo. On the first morning of the workshop Hide and I were standing in the lobby of the hotel, when in came a man and a woman. For some reason I assumed they were husband and wife. The man I recognized as Professor Mita, of Chiba University. I said to Hide, Mita has a very beautiful wife. Hide laughed and said, that’s his PhD student, not his wife, and she’s Chinese, not Japanese. Word got around the workshop that Francis Sensei had said this woman was beautiful. At the end of the workshop, Mita came up to me, his student a little distance behind him. Mita asked if I would like to go the next day to visit a lake, a resort near Sapporo. I hesitated. Mita turned and said, and she’ll come too. I quickly agreed. So the three of us went to the lake, and rode bicycles around it. I’ll skip all the rest, though it’s very romantic, and get to the punchline. That graduate student and I are married and here she is, Jingwen. As you can see, she IS very beautiful, and it’s now 23 years later. The second thing I’m grateful to Sarah for is sneaking Jing into the department as a graduate student. But I don’t want to incriminate anyone, so enough said about that. Jing and I have a daughter, Lian, who’s in grade 12. One other time when I was on a working trip in Japan, Lian and I wrote letters back and forth to each other. I love to write and Lian does too. I mentioned earlier how direct Murray was in appraising my writing. Lian too has been my critic. She was 10 at the time I was in Japan and here’s what she wrote in one of her letters: "You are 56 and you should know how to write. I found lots of mistakes in your email. Pay more attention! Don't be lazy, Old Boy!" Quite a bit more descriptive than Murray’s "No." And that’s about it. I don’t have to tell you how happy I feel and what a privilege it’s been to be a professor here, because all of you must feel the same way. Thanks for listening to my retirement speech. Bruce Francis  |