Here is a narrative poem I wrote in honor of my research advisor, Dr. Adrian Korpel, a scientist, inventor and much more broadly, a rationalist and humanist with an enlightened view of the human world. This was written on the occasion of his 90th birthday in 2022. I am posting here in these pages following Dr. Korpel's passing this year (2023) on October 3rd.It has both scientific and Indian imagery. MRC.

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The Hierarchy of Nine

Celebrating Adrian Korpel's Ascension towards the Centennial (2022)

My mentor and inspiration for graduate studies and much more for the past 43+ years, accomplished scientist, avid reader, conversationalist and keen humanist, Dr. Adrian Korpel, passed away at age 91 on October 1st, 2023 in his home in Tucson, Arizona.

Adrian Korpel (AK) created an extended family of graduate students (primarily the ones he guided through their doctoral research) during his years at the University of Iowa, training them for scientific inquiry and more (in my own case, to also be mindful of human affairs, respond to issues of social justice, and overall pursue life from the perspectives of such renaissance figures as da Vinci, or Rabindranath Tagore and Satyajit Ray from my own Bengali heritage) through what he called the Socratic Method. That family, with members mostly from the 1980s, is still largely together. In 2012, several of us (self, Ting-Chung Poon, Partha Banerjee, Ron Pieper, David Mehrl) had gathered in Iowa City to celebrate AK's 80th birthday (I wrote a tribute poem to mark that occasion, which appeared for a period of time in these tribute pages. I may resurrect that poem in another tribute.

I would like to mention here also that my fellow former graduate students of AK and I had a tribute article published last Fall in Optics and Photonics News (URL:

click here) which summarized some of AK's work and their impact.

In May, 2022, we gathered again in Tucson, AZ, to celebrate AK's 90th birthday. We are fortunate he attended this celebration with great enthusiasm (joined by his wife, Margaret Ann Ellsworth), even though he was a little frail, but in full possession of his wit, humor and sharp intellect.

Here is something I wrote on my Facebook timeline upon receiving the news of his loss (Oct 1st, '23):
"...Just received news that my greatest intellectual mentor (also my Advisor for graduate studies), Dr. Adrian Korpel, passed away earlier today. Dr. Korpel was among the rarest of scientists with a genuinely Renaissance Man bend. In his presence, I always felt there was no limit to what we could discuss- from our place in the Universe to the Upanishads and Hindu philosophy. The window of his mind was wide open to every possible area of human (and humane) interest- even though he was deeply rooted in the queries and discoveries of science, which stimulated him like nothing else.

Dr. Korpel was a genuinely enlightened human being (a rare feat in our human encounters).
My heart is much too heavy with the sense of loss of someone whose graciousness brought me to where I am today. In fact, my journey into the wider world would not have happened had it not been for his kindness and guidance. Hence, I am unable to write much more today. Maybe there will be another day for more. The following tribute poem I wrote in honor of AK was written to celebrate his 90th birthday (one year before he left us for eternity). Dr. Korpel was moved by the poem, and described it to me with the words "Thank you for your meditation on Nine". Here, then is the poem to Dr. Adrian Korpel on his 90th birthday.
[May I mention here that I was unable to get the tribute poem published at Optica (formerly Opical Society of America), an organization and a discipline to which he had devoted his entire career, because of their drastically reduced word limitations. This is highly regrettable. MRC]

The Hierarchy of Nine

Celebrating Adrian Korpel's Ascension towards the Centennial

February 18, 2022

2022 Monish R Chatterjee

**

A major milestone, no doubt, trekking

Across science, consciousness and the interplays of creation

For nine decades, anchored in three continents-

Exploring the frontiers of light and sound, ultrasonics

Imaging, holography and nonlinear phenomena-

Even while observing the absurdities inherent in

The living experience with temperance and goodwill.

**

The number nine (here amplified tenfold) through history

Has occupied a place of significance, perhaps more so

In the Indian context. In the royal courts, from Chandragupta

The Vikramaditya to Akbar the Great Mughal- high honor

Was bestowed upon the Nava Ratna, the nine jewels

Bedazzling the court with achievements in astronomy

The sciences, economics, arts and literature.

**

In those early times, preceding the age of the quantum

Space-time and strings by centuries, when astronomy was

Often conflated with astrology and alchemy (not even sparing

Sir Isaac), human destinies were tied to the Nava Graha

The nine planets, Pluto's recent demoted status notwithstanding.

Senses there were six, avatars there were ten, Vedas

There were four, and the Bard himself declared the Seven Ages

**

Of Man, visualizing presciently the grand theater that was

This human life. And so forth with numbers of significance

From Avogadro to Planck, from Bernoulli to Boltzmann, then

Migrating to the number wizards- Ramanujan and Hardy, Gauss

Fermat and Euler. In the decimal system, however, in its land

Of origin- nine has held sway and thereby percolated to life.

The deities have been virtually defined by nine in their myriad

**

Aspects. From the elemental nine cycled to the twelve solar

Months arose the one hundred and eight names or manifestations

Of each divine entity. From thence arose the number 864 crores

Signifying a Brahmic day. Yet in this moment of celebrating

Nine times ten, the limit need hardly be set by mythology- one

May perhaps consider also quantum folklore. One enters here

The realm of Schrodinger's cat (SC), usually anointed a paradox.

**

Now, by folklore, a cat it is said has nine, mark it, nine lives.

An appropriate question, might well be- does the paradoxical

Schrodinger cat have nine lives as well? Or, are there all these

Nested speculations in vogue: Does SC have nine full lives with

Zero non-living intervals, or nine half-lives (in the box) with

Another nine half-lives outside? Or the unresolved probabilistic

Existential issues of whether any of those lives is actually lived

**

Within or without. Perhaps only our nonagenarian sage might

Provide the answers. Or perhaps not. And so today, counting

Our good fortune of having shared these years as fellow

Travelers with you, our activities having taken us near and far

Our together years progressively receding to the farther reaches

Of the memory hole- we are gathered with gratefulness

For the training received by your hands in scientific rationalism

**

Remembering vital, younger years gathering around serialized

Presentations of The Far Pavilions and The Day After long before

The age of the internet and communications tools in every hand-

Products of the very quests and searches you had pursued and

Made us fellow participants in; the many Q&As from the

Socratic meetings- on behalf of our very special league of

Knowledge-seekers, we offer the most heartfelt compliments

**

With the fervent hope:

May your journey to 100 be a blissful ride ON CLOUD NINE !!

**
[P.S. Alas- celebrating his 100th here on earth was not to be. AK left us for the celestial sphere on October 1st, 2023 in his 91st year. MRC]

(Article changed on Dec 15, 2023 at 11:40 PM EST)

(Article changed on Dec 15, 2023 at 11:49 PM EST)

(Article changed on Dec 15, 2023 at 11:52 PM EST)

Authors Bio:

Monish R. Chatterjee received the B.Tech. (Hons) degree in Electronics and Communications Engineering from I.I.T., Kharagpur, India, in 1979, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering, from the University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, in 1981 and 1985, respectively. Dr. Chatterjee was a faculty member in Electrical and Computer Engineering at SUNY Binghamton from 1986 through 2002. Dr. Chatterjee is currently with the ECE department at the University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio. Dr. Chatterjee, who specializes in applied optics, has contributed more than 100 papers to technical conferences, and has published more than 70 papers in archival journals and conference proceedings, in addition to numerous reference articles on science. Dr. Chatterjee's most recent literary essays appear in Rabindranath Tagore: Universality and Tradition, published by FDU Press (2004); Celebrating Tagore, published by Allied Publishers (2009); and Tagore: A Timeless Mind by ICCR and the London Tagore Society (2012). He is the author of four books of translation (Kamalakanta, Profiles in Faith, Balika Badhu and Seasons of Life) from his native Bengali. In 2000, Dr. Chatterjee received the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching. In 2005, Dr. Chatterjee received a Humanities Fellows award from the University of Dayton to conduct research on scientific language. He is a Senior Member of IEEE, OSA, and SPIE and a member of ASEE and Sigma Xi.