Welcome to my little intro. My full name is Kin Fai Kam, but most people just call me Kin. I was born in Hong Kong and emigrated to England when I was 10. I went to Counthill Comprehensive in Oldham followed by sixth form in Burnage High School in Manchester. With the exception of the brilliant maths teachers in the latter school, I regret to report both schools were pretty dire at the time.
Fortunately, Einstein was my childhood hero and I rather like physics too; thus I got myself to read physics at the University of York, and then the notoriously illness inducing Part III Maths Tripos course at the Department of Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP) at University of Cambridge. You may have seen that beautiful film ‘The Theory of Everything’ about Stephen Hawking who was the Lucasian Professor at DAMTP. I was fortunate to be a student there where I have frequently dodged Hawking’s fast roving wheelchair in the department’s narrow corridors.
To cut the story short, I spent a further 12 years working in physics research, except unusually for most career scientist, I worked on three totally different research areas; 5 years on nuclear fusion theory at Culham Laboratory of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, 4 years on applied quantum theory and over 2 years in Computational Electromagnetics at University of York.
Why not focus on one field?
Basically, I am a generalist, preferring to take interest in a broader range of subjects, which is incompatible with the standard career path where most scientists or academics are specialists. Hence, after the end of several typical short term post-doc contracts, and the coincidence of the coming of a number of different inventive ideas, I decided to have a go at pursuing these ideas. Inadvertently I became an inventor, independent scientist and an author! It has been an amazing journey of many ups and downs, successes and failures, elation and frustrations , lessons learned and expansion of one’s creativity.
You can read about this experience (and more) in my recently published book ‘Blood, Dragons and Lions’. Forever curious about nature and current affairs, I welcome active engagement on this website, Twitter and other social media platforms which you may find me in.