The phone rang. I picked it up.
"Jack? Chuck Chuckerson here." Chuck was my head-hunter. Even though I had a decent job as a professor at Cimmanon State University, I knew that it was always a good idea to keep an ear to the ground.
I had never met Chuck in person, but I knew him to be a fairly exuberant individual. "I've got a great job for you out in Silicon Valley. Telecommunications. This company is pre-IPO, it's so hot it's sizzling! You'll love it! Pays competitive, stock options. I'll have them call you this afternoon. Ok?"
"Sure," I said. "Great!"
"Ok, the guy that will be calling you is Bob Tenner. He's the CTO, Chief Technical Officer. Oh and Jack?"
"Yes?"
"Just a little advice, buddy. Your resume and credentials, they are great. 100% solid. But I'd like you to emphasize your work in lasers and communications. That stuff with the bubbles...it's great! But I don't think it's particularly what this company is looking for."
I sighed. "Yeh."
"Ok buddy. Listen I'll catch you later! Have a great one, okay!"
Sung-Wu poked his head in the door. "Got a minute?" he said. "We can get a cup of coffee."
"Sure," I said. We walked down to the coffee shop. As we walked, I gazed at the beautiful columns and leafy trees of Cinnamon State, knowing that I might not be around the school much longer. I knew what was coming, but I guess it didn't bother me that much.
"Well," said Sung-Wu. He sipped his coffee slowly. "As you know, the tenure committee has been reviewing your work for the past few weeks." He smiled at me regretfully. "Jack, I'm afraid that you have not been approved for tenure."
I munched a cookie thoughtfully. "Any particular reason," I asked.
"As you know," said Sung-Wu, "we hired you for your expertise in optics and lasers. However, it looks to us that for the the past year or so you've been working on this bubbles project."
"Yes," I said.
"Your work on this bubbles project has shown no publications. You've gotten no money thorough research grants. It's not hot."
"I know," I said.
"We hired Dr. Smith at the same time as you. Smith has been working on a communications project. He's published 7 papers and brought in a few million dollars. That's the kind of thing we're looking for."
"So that's the story," said Sung-Wu. "But I want you to know that we certainly have appreciated your work, and having you around. By the way, how is Nancy?"
"She's fine," I said. "Although probably she won't be too thrilled about this news. On the other hand, maybe she will be. She always wanted me to get one of those hot jobs in industry."
Sung-Wu waved his hand dismissively. "Look, Jack. We both know that, with your skill set, you can get a great job tommorrow. Probably you will be making three times as much as you do now!"
We talked for a while, and then I returned to my office. I liked Sung-Wu, and I certainly understood the decision of the tenure committee.
Let me tell you what you already know: Communications is hot. Lasers, optics, telecommunications. They are driving this economy!
When I came here to Cinnamon State, that's what I was interested in.
But then about a year ago, a physicist named Dr. Halveston walked into my office. He was a large man with a thick thatch of gray hair, and a deep resonant voice. He carried a transparent cylinder full of soap bubbles. Halveston explained that his goal was to image the three dimensional coordinates of the bubbles. "You see these bubbles," he said in his Swedish accent.
"Yeah," I said. They were soap bubbles, forming a beautiful three dimensional lattice inside the container.
"Well, he said. "I need to find the three-dimensional location of their vertices. Then I can plug these locations into my computer and model them mathematically."
"Interesting," I said.
"Yes," he said. "It's been a problem for many years. We have a mathematical model for the bubbles, but we need to take experimental data to match the model."
"I see," I said.
"But if we take a picture, then we can only get a two-dimensional images of the bubbles."
"Right," I said.
"Any ideas?" he asked.
"Well..." I thought. "Using tomography- you know, from medical imaging. We could take several pictures, and then put them together to form a three dimensional data set of your images.
"That would be great!" said Dr. Halveston. "That would be exactly what I have in mind!"
And so that was the start of my bubbles research. Suddenly the telecommunications work didn't seem so exciting. Telecommunications is mostly about faster, better communications systems. Certainly there are a lot of smart guys working on it. But how exciting is it? Is it really new research?
The bubbles project seemed to me more scientific. More cool.
But of course, the world doesn't want scientific right now. Everyone wants the money, which comes from telecommunications.
I looked at the bubbles paper that we had written on the computer. "Imaging of Bubbles, by Putters and Halveston."
I examined the paper closely, looking for errors. After a year's worth of work, we had done it! Using advanced imaging techniques, we had reconstructed the three-dimensional bubbles image.
I found the website of an optics journal. With a click, I submitted the paper to the journal. "Thank you for submitting your work," the webpage read. "It will now go through the review stage. Your submission number is MS4545."
I imagined the paper, like a little bird, flying to the optics journal. Next, reviewers would evaluate it and determine whether it was worthy of publication. And if they published it? Maybe someone would read it, and continue the work. Maybe they would be just a little bit interested! That would certainly be nice.
The phone rang. "Jack? This is Bob Tenner. I'm calling from TelecomFiber. I've looked at your resume, very interesting. We have an opportunity that I think is right up your alley. It involves communications, lasers, and fiber optics. Do you have any specific experience in communications?"
"Certainly," I said. I pictured myself in a nice house, making $100K a year, driving the BMW. Maybe I'd buy Nancy a minivan. Then my mind turned back to the bubbles. Well, I thought, the paper will be published. Time to let someone else continue that work.
"You there?" said Bob.
"Yes I'm here," I said. "I have extensive experience in communications."