MENZEL’S AFTER DINNER SPEECH
16th March 2000. SSS Conference. Canada.
P.M. Echenique. After dinner speech in Menzel’s day.
16th March 2000. SSS Conference. Canadá.
(Transcription of the speech of P.M.Echenique).
What a coincidence. Today is Menzel’s day and today is the day the Dow Jones has beaten the record of a day’s increase. I am sure this does not please Dietrich but it is a fact.
My good friend Peter Varga always talks clearly and speaks bluntly to me. This morning he asked me, but Pedro why on earth are you giving the after dinner speech? He is right. I should explain why I talk here. This is easy. I speak here because I have been asked to do so. My first reaction was to say no for several reasons. First of all I didn’t think I was the most appropriate one. But this is not my responsibility, others choose me and therefore they are the responsible ones. Second I was worried, (I am worried, I should say), that even if I could articulate something to say I am not so sure that, my beautiful English accent would be fully understood in the Colonies. I can not help remembering my first seminar at Cambridge at the end of my Ph.D. When I finished, Phil Anderson asked me: “Pedro where did you learn English?” with my natural arrogance, I answered: “In Oxford Sir” only to hear Anderson again. “Did you ask for your money back?” By the time I answered. “No Sir success was not guaranteed” nobody in the audience was able to hear me.
Our distinguished guests have come from around the globe. Many have come to celebrate this special birthday, and they know far more than I do about Menzel’s achievements in his central research. I only know part of his peripheral work. But his peripheral work is so impressive in scope and quality that it alone would be the envy of many of us.
Menzel is an attractor, he is able to attract always outstanding people to work and collaborate with him. I should say though that he not only attracts scientist. At the last SSS we were having lunch in Park City when a beautiful American lady in the late thirties (I suppose) came along. She looked around exploring where to sit and, I would not say to my surprise, (where else?) she choose to seat next to Dietrich and glancing at him she opened in a very feminine way her anorak with the words: “Well I am so hot …”.
I will not go further since I have been warned about the rigidity of American’s on this kind of comment. But in case there is the slightest doubt about the truthfulness of my words I must add that Dick Manson and Wolf Schneider were there and could testify the veracity of this!
A few days ago Menzel was awarded the Robert Wichard Pohl Prize for, (I quote almost by heart).
“Menzel has made excellent contributions to chemical physics at surfaces, in particular to the interaction and dynamics of atoms and molecules with well-defined metal and semiconductor surfaces. These processes are of fundamental importance for many practical phenomena such as catalysis, radiation-induced reactions, reactions at surfaces and in thin films, epitaxy, etc. The MGR-mechanism is of fundamental importance for the coupling between electronic excitation and the nuclear motion. In this field Menzel has performed excellent work up to recent years in particular by the use of synchrotron radiation”.
My words are, just in case you didn’t notice, to honour Dietrich Menzel. This is what we are here for to honour a physicist, a chemist? Anyway a scientist, a man many of us like and all of us respect and admire.
Menzel is a complex person with a real and imaginary part. Many of you have heard these days about the imaginary Menzel but let me tell you about the real one: The real Menzel, an honest versatile mind, full of talent and capable of inspiring confidence in his people to work independently.
Dietrich Menzel is a Professor, a master, in the noblest sense of the word. For me he is a clear positive example of how to behave as a Professor. A negative Professor has servants, instead of students or co-workers, a negative Professor goes for the weak (usually the Ph.D. students) instead of fighting the big shots. Menzel does exactly the opposite he goes, if necessary, against the big shots, “only a king can fight a king!”, He knows the state of the art, does not take credit for the work of others, and responsibly helps his people. He is prepared to endure hard times even with the administration to make sure that his students are not unfairly treated.
This strong sense of fairness characterises D. Menzel. I will come back to this point latter. A few days ago in a Conference in Austria one of his former Ph.D. students sent the following note to me.
“Dear Pedro
I was one of Dietrich’s PhD students. I had the freedom to choose my supervisor and selected him because all my colleagues told me that he was really a good and handsome guy.
At the moment I didn’t realise how much he cares for his students, but and the end of my PhD thesis I realised that they were right. Because of typically German bureaucratism the directorium of the MPI Max Planck refused to sign my contract for the last year, so that I faced the problem of having no contract being in the phase of measuring day and night and it was Dietrich who decided to fight for my rights, and he won. I got my contract (and half a year later my PhD).
Dietrich is competitive, but he knows very well whom to protect and whom to fight.
Sorry, that’s all I know about him, but still today I am grateful to him for the efforts he made to help me”.
Let me stop at two points of this letter. “At the moment I didn’t realise …” It takes time to learn to appreciate a good wine, remember Dietrich! As Wolf would say “Quel difference de bouqué”. It is curious but this morning a brilliant young Professor told me the same “at the moment I thought he did not know about my Ph.D. Latter I realized he had everything under control.”
My friend tells me “Dietrich is competitive, but he knows …”
I remember very vividly the skiing race at the first triple S Conference in La Plagne. Menzel was 7th or 8th at about 3 seconds from Peter Varga, the winner. After I asked how could that be – After all even P. Feibelman is reputed to have said: “Menzel skiing is better than Heiland’s tennis” - he told me very seriously. “But you know Pedro I am not a very competitive man …”
Let me use this opportunity to clarify a historical point.
I finished second at 5 hundredth of a second from Peter Varga. This was as he is proud to remind me (in private and publicly) the time I have been closest to win (and to his time). The first is true. The second no. Peter collapsed (like a frog) in the race of the second La Plagne Conference while I finished in a characteristically elegant manner, If one is to tell the truth it has to be the whole truth, and I must admit, that once we realized that nothing wrong had happened to Peter we all, and I say all, enjoyed that fall.
But this was not the most important crash of that skiing conference. Again Dietrich took the lead on this too. He nearly killed himself in a frightening ridge, named afterwards the Menzel Ridge. I was with him and could see how his head was passing a about 30 cm of some rocks while he was facing the sky. However as I learned afterwards my perception was wrong, he had had everything under control and was directing his fall with full command..??
I do not think that I need to quote here the nice book of essays by Victor Weisskopf entitled “The Privilege of being a Physicist” to remain you how privileged we are. This of course, can’t be said in Europe if politicians are around; they might take it too seriously. But we are. Sometimes we are trying so hard to be the best and the first that we forget the privilege of just being able to continue with what we are doing. Our life is fascinating, rewarding and satisfying for a significant part of the time, (of course we have to write proposals as well). We have access to the fascination, wonder and beauty of the ideas of modern physics. One of the many things I like about Menzel, is his admiration that I completely share, not only for the beauty of nature but for the beauties of Nature.
One of the nicest aspects of our lives is the possibility of collaboration with colleagues and students. We are part of a brotherhood that transcends nationality, ethnicity, age and background. Science is an international enterprise. I was fortunate enough to meet Dietrich and from the beginning, even if purposely I gave the opposite impression, I was smart enough to listen carefully to what he said then and have been fortunate enough to be in a position to listen carefully ever since. From these conversations I have learned much about physics, surface science, people, politics, philosophy, friendship, pain, purpose, life.
He is broad minded. Always open to new things. He is always very careful in what he publishes. Never publishes faster than he thinks. Never publishes things done by others that he doesn’t understand. (Not even the ones he understands unless he has contributed enough). Two eminent German Professors that are with us tonight have pointed out to me that this is not precisely the rule at home. I do not know and one should be careful here, because one can hurt the feelings of some. I did this precisely that this morning. Obviously Menzel has inspired his people with a sense of rightful pride. I asked this morning to one of the brilliant young new C4 Professors, “in which group do you work”?, the looked at me fiercely and answer: In my group!. Menzel obviously chooses well his people.
He is not so careful in choosing to whom to follow skiing. The result of course is that Menzel and I with a few others had to walk in our skiing boots in the mud for more than two hours in La Plagne to reach the valley. Remember Dietrich: “Keep cool. There is no danger but no rescue team”.
And then there is the issue of leadership. Menzel is a natural leader and indeed a scientific leader. Through these years I have become convinced that there is a Menzel style of doing things, the Menzel way (certainly, I should add, a safer way of doing things that another Menzel’s way; The Menzel way of skiing!). I really admire this sense of pride of belonging to this group. “The best in the world in surface Science” as someone was telling me this morning (Then he added, “perhaps together with Ertl’s”) Needless to say my informer was a German Professor. We have seen in this Conference this sense of pride taken perhaps a bit too far by some youngsters “In our group we never believed the work of others until we checked it ourselves” It is all very well to develop a sceptical attitude, but to the point of becoming fanatics of the doubt?
A characteristic of Menzel’s group is the good atmosphere of work. A healthy competitiveness is combined with friendship and mutual help.
I already mentioned Menzel’s strong sense of fairness. He will speak his mind at whatever moment he finds he ought to do so irrespective of the convenience of the moment. He often express minority opinions no doubt believing with Hardy that “It is never worth a first class man’s time to express a majority opinion by definition there are plenty of others to do that”. This attitude, no doubt, has taken him into trouble. Things are not as easy as ironically Congressman Hamilton pretended them to be: “I do not see why the Arabs and the Jews do not settle their differences as any good Christian would”.
This is a dangerous moment for a speaker. He gets warmed up by talking and could go on and on. It is precisely the moment one should approach the finish. It is very dangerous for a speaker the moment in which his eagerness to continue is inversely proportional to the desire of the audience for him to go on.
Let summarise our views on Menzel. There is more to Menzel than his leadership, his knowledge, his genius: there is warmth, integrity and friendship. We appreciate in Menzel the specialist who has a wide outlook, broad knowledge and warm enthusiasm outside his own subject as well as in it … whose heart and eyes take also delight in the triumph of art, in the history of man, in the progress of society, in social justice, in nature (A man capable to leave the lab at the hills of Berkeley to enjoy the sunset and return to work), and as I said, in the beauties of nature.
We all know beautiful metaphors about the idea of progress, Newton’s “on the shoulder of giants”, or another usual one. “The link of the chain”. I will use one that impressed me deeply when I read it. It is from the diary of Andre Gide and expresses beautifully the wonderful work done by giants like Menzel, in creating a school. I would quote in the language I read it.
“Todas las olas del mar
deben la belleza de su perfil
a la retirada de las que le precedieron”
Or, in an improvised translation that I prepared carefully with Dick Manson at lunch.
“All the waves of the sea owe the beauty of their profile to the ones that arrive before and depart”
To sum up; in a sentence.
Many people strive to have a career in science: Dietrich Menzel has shown us the more noble way of attaining a life in science. We are proud to be his friends.