{"id":75,"date":"1980-06-01T13:19:31","date_gmt":"1980-06-01T13:19:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/?p=75"},"modified":"2023-03-07T12:51:52","modified_gmt":"2023-03-07T20:51:52","slug":"the-computerization-of-john-b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/?p=75","title":{"rendered":"The Computerization of John B."},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n

(Apologies to Robert Service)<\/p>\n

A poem written on the occasion of John B. Warren’s retirement party. <\/em><\/p>\n

John Warren was a great physicist, a good friend and a nice man. The world is less for his passing. This poem was written for his official retirement from UBC around 1980, a few years after his retirement as the first Director of TRIUMF due to a heart attack. He retired reluctantly, devoting much attention to the production of apples on his farm in the Okanagon but returning to TRIUMF periodically to remind us of what we were supposed to be doing, until his death years later. I miss his advice.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There are strange things seen at a big machine
\nby the men who moil for muons.
\nThe various factions have interactions
\nthat would make quarks spit out gluons.
\nThe Meson Hall lights have seen queer sights,
\nbut the queerest they ever did see
\nwas that night by the beam of M13
\nwhen I computerized John B.<\/p>\n

Now, John was raised in the ancient days
\nwhen computers were only a dream.
\nThe numbers he’d pack on an envelope’s back
\nwere astonishing! . . . so it now seems.
\nWhen microprocessors became our oppressors
\nand FORTRAN IV-plus was invented,
\nhe thought of the lot as a mechanist plot
\nto drive J.B. Warren demented.<\/p>\n

One midnight our team was taking beam
\nand fitting the data on line.
\nThe computer was busy! The noise made us dizzy
\nas it hummed and beeped and whined.
\nIf we opened our door then the Meson Hall roar
\nassaulted our sanity.
\nIt wasn’t much fun, but the only one
\nwho didn’t compute was John B.<\/p>\n

Later that night as we stood packed tight
\n’round a rack of defunct nucleonics,
\nthe oscilloscope screen cast a glow of green
\non the tangle of wires and ‘lectronics.
\nHe turned to me and, “Jess,” said he,
\n“I’ll retire next year, I guess,
\nand if I do, I wonder if you
\nmight consider the following request:<\/p>\n

“When I move to my farm, it would do you no harm,
\nand is even dictated by prudence,
\nthat you should enhance the effects of your grants
\nby looking after my students.
\nIt’s not my displacement, it’s the thought of replacement
\nby a computer that ruins my day.
\nSo I want you to swear that, foul or fair,
\nyou’ll maintain my PHA.”<\/p>\n

Now, a colleague’s neurosis is fine in small doses,
\nbut this was a wholesale batch.
\nSo I promised that night to preserve pulse height
\noff-line techniques, with one catch:
\nI made John swear this burden to bear:
\nthat he’d program the PDP
\nto pick and to happily polish each apple
\nthat grows on the trees of J.B.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Apologies to Robert Service) A poem written on the occasion of John B. Warren’s retirement party. John Warren was a great physicist, a good friend and a nice man. The world is less for his passing. This poem was written for his official retirement from UBC around 1980, a fewRead More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1980-1999","category-occasional"],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=75"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76,"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions\/76"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=75"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=75"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jick.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=75"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}