Happy Fourth Birthday, Tiarnan.

Tiarnan, our youngest son, is four today. Somehow, he has sped from newborn to four in what seems like an instant, but is probably just a sign that I am not as young as I used to be and so life seems to have speeded up. No doubt, to Tiarnan, those first four years seem very long indeed.

We have already, actually, celebrated his birthday, at the beach, in Singapore, this last weekend, with a good few of his young friends and a good few of their parents (our friends). Thank you to all those who came and made Tiarnan's day at the beach a memorable one. We had asked him where he wanted his birthday to be - and he had said, "At the beach!", so we obliged. It was a happy day for him.

Happy Birthday Tiarnan!

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 6, or Tiarnan, exactly 4, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, College, University, HELP University College, Chemistry, Physics, Computer Science, Computer Programming, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, prodigy, genie, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

IMDB is the Internet Movie Database for film and tv professionals. If you would like to look at my IMDB listing, for which about another fifteen credits have yet to be uploaded. This will take many months before they are approved. Please go to: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3438598/ for my listing. Ainan’s listing is at http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3305973/ My wife, Syahidah Osman Cawley’s listing is at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

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Happy Birthday, Syahidah.

Today is Syahidah's birthday. For those who don't know, she is my wife and mother to my three sons.

Happy Birthday Syahidah! Today is a big one...but I am not letting on, which: any guesses?

Happy Birthday, Syahidah!

Yesterday, was Syahidah's birthday: which one is, of course, a state secret.

We celebrated at home with scores of friends throughout the day from morning until night. There were friends from all over the world, there: Germany, India, Argentina, Guatemala, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, among others. It was a congenial day, for me, in particular, as I got to meet many of my wife's friends that I had not encountered before - as well as some I was familiar with.

Quite funny to note: among my wife's friends, all the husbands were universally good looking and intelligent - some of them very good looking indeed. It was enough to make an insecure man worried. It seems that all my wife's female friends were very good at picking their hubbies. They, too, were all intelligent and well presented.

Most of the guests brought their children so that two parties took place at the same time: the party for little people scurrying around at high speed, beneath our feet - and the party for big people, taking place more sedately, above them.

Conversation was varied an interesting, given the range of people present, varying from the nature of different cultures, education, biology, genetics, economics, banking, the state of society and many others. My wife and I both found it refreshing.

Happy Birthday, Syahidah!

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and eleven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and four months, and Tiarnan, twenty-one months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Gerhard Ertl, Nobel Prize for Chemistry 2007

Given the subject of Ainan’s central interest, it seems appropriate that I should mention Gerhard Ertl, Emeritus Professor at the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, in Berlin. He has just been awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his ground-breaking research into surface chemistry.

Now, like many areas of basic research, there are often many applications that go beyond the obvious. Ertl’s extremely precise work, under conditions of vacuum, has revealed the inner workings of many chemical mysteries. Ertl has provided an answer as to why iron rusts, the destruction of the ozone layer, how fuel cells work, the operation of catalytic converters (through the oxidation of carbon monoxide on a platinum catalyst) and other catalysts such as the iron used in the Haber-Bosch process for fixing of nitrogen fertilizers. His work began in the 1960s and has had an extensive influence over all areas of surface chemistry.

This is the first time I have heard of Gerhard Ertl – a name known, I suppose, beforehand only to his colleagues in Chemistry. It is this way with many Nobelists. Their work is of great importance to mankind – but they labour in the relative obscurity of their respective niches. It is only when they win a major prize, such as the Nobel, that we become aware of them. I am not sure that that is the best situation. I, for one, would like to know of the names and personalities of those who shape our world – and not have to rely on the decision-making powers of a body in Sweden to bring them to my attention. I would rather have known of Ertl beforehand – and all the other great scientific thinkers at work, today, whose names may never be known, by the public, unless they are recognized by a Nobel Award.

Congratulations to Gerhard Ertl. Unusually, in these times of scientific co-operation, in which group work is common, Ertl does not share the prize with any other scientist.

Oh, and Happy Birthday, too: the prize was announced on his 71st birthday.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and ten months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and three months, and Tiarnan, twenty months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)