Almost every summer, a workshop called “summer institute” is held at Mt. Fuji. The venue is beautiful, confortable and relaxing, so it is a perfect place to stay for a while for physics discussions. In fact, this series of the annual workshops was initiated in around 1995 to have something like Aspen institute in Japan. I participated in this workshop from the second one, at that time I was a graduate student. What I remember about the workshop then was just that I gave one qestion in some seminar, other than that, I swam, I played table tennis, and that’s all — it was just great for discussions, communications and interactions. Now, after 15 years or so, from that viewpoint, nothing has changed. I was again in a relaxing mood, had discussions, took a walk on a grass, and such. I don’t care about any view of Mt. Fuji. Of course it is beautiful, but there is something more precious than the beautiful view.
Unfortunately the schedule of this summer institute session for string theory and cosmology completely overlaps with a workshop at KEK for hadrons and nuclear physics. Thanks to the KEK workshop organizer, my talk was arranged to the last session of the KEK workshop. I was just in time for my talk, which went well as opposed to my expectation. Discussions with hadron physicists and nuclear theorists were pleasant, which I truely appreciate. I have learned things which directly related to my study — In particular when I like to know something which is not about string thoery/particle physics, it is alwasy difficult to find the answer in archive papers, so it is the best and easiest to ask someone whose major is the subject of my concern. Workshops like this one are the place where I can do such things, and resultantly, have much influence on the direction of my research.
In Japan, now we are in a special period called “Obon”, and everyone is supposed to take a vacation. Do theoretical physicisits take any vacation? No, they have their ideas and physics problems in their brains, everyday, every moment. That’s why there are workshops in this Obon season. However, after two workshops, I got exhausted, may need some rest physically. Questions/problems in my head may allow me to take some rest, I hope — but it cannot be helped, enthusiasm for physics is often not under my control….
