[Todos] Fwd: nforme sobre la corrupción en Exactas – Parte 28

[fabio vicentini]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: fabio vicentini <fmvicent en gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Nov 29, 2013 at 6:52 AM
Subject: nforme sobre la corrupción en Exactas – Parte 28
To: "presidencia en conicet.gov.ar" <presidencia en conicet.gov.ar>,
FulbrightNEXUS en iie.org, info en fundacionsadosky.org.ar, info en mincyt.gob.ar,
prensa en mincyt.gov.ar, prensa en me.gov.ar



Buenos Aires, Novembre 29, 2013

Dear  Colleagues:



*...* in all my labours is to vex the world

rather than divert it... (Jonathan Swift)



After working 15 years as an Operations Researcher at du Pont de Nemours,
the Argentina's Rosada House was taken over by the military Junta. They
killed 30000 "comunistas", and his economy minister took the first steps
into carrying out the neoliberal policy. I found myself out of work. I was
lucky in finding another OR job at the Techint Group. Ten years later the
administration was at the hands of president Carlos Menem, and I found
myself out of work again. In order to keep on living I was forced into
entering the School of Exact and Natural Sciences (FCEyN/UBA). There I
lectured on OR subjects, but after ten years I was dismissed again, the
third time in my life. Surely there is something wrong with me: I was
trying to use OR in the real world instead of writing papers in the
academy. Let me end this story giving an account of the last stage of my
predicament.



At my alighting at FCEyN (1995) a friendly colleague adviced me on the
school’s rules of the game, the most important of which was that of writing
papers to be sent to peer-reviewed journals. On what subject? I asked. That
doesn’t matter, the aim is to maximize the number of publications. What if
I don’t want? I asked. Then they'll dismiss you.



Now, I was the only authentic applied mathematician in the school since I
had been working 30 years in such a metier. My past experience dealt with
searching solutions to practical problems using OR techniques. I was not
interested in dreaming up problems based on papers which are based on
papers, and so on .



One of my colleagues, feeling worried about my future, suggested I join a
research group and he recommended the differential equations team for they
were champions in paper production. He insisted on talking the chairman
into fix me in that group. Unfortunately I made a wrong move, I wrote a
satire and wire it to the whole faculty. It was about Charlie Chaplin
working like mad throwing up papers like in the film "Modern Times". The
establishment was not pleased, so I wrote a second story of myself as a
researcher at the Academy of Lagado in the Kingdom of Laputa. I am sorry,
but I was badly brought up; my father was a practical joker, and I am a fan
of Bertrand Russell who was a master in using irony to unmask humbugs.



I persisted in not writing papers. Instead I did consulting jobs for a
steel-making firm while I kept teaching OR subjects to my students. Finally
a couple of academic top dogs who disliked my being the rotten apple who
did no papers, conspired to get rid of me and my vexing humour.



I felt to be unjustly disposed of, they had dropped the only applied
mathematician among 60 pure mathematicians. Someone must use the theory on
real world problems, I said on my behalf, but my complaint fell on deaf ears.
So I became an academic "desaparecido". My subject was taken over by the
computer science dept where they write papers, call for OR meetings, invite
foreigners to lecture on TSP, in short, they make a show of working
energetically on OR.



In my next reincarnation I will change my moral quality of the previous
life's actions. I will abide by the rules of the game, I will call
attention to myself by making the appropiate gestures and signals, I will
make a display of scientific activities, and I will fawn upon my superiors.



Sincerely,

Fabio Vicentini

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*Carta enviada a colegas de mi especialidad.*
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