Pursuit autobiography of James Russell Farmer

My passions in life have been in tennis, music and science in that order. When I was 10, I bought my first tennis racquet, an aluminium one for $15, in 1976. This was before graphite racquets arrived on the scene. A short time later, I won a tennis tournament in Auckland, New Zealand. I was disappointed the prize was a bar of chocolate, but the tournament organisers offered to give me an alternative prize, a cover for my racquet, which I was very happy about.

When John Lennon died, I made up my mind I wanted to be a rock star, so I got my friend Louie, in Sydney, to teach me rhythm guitar. That was 1981, and by 1982 we had a band going. It only lasted six months. The following year, after a “trip”, I was overwhelmed with the profundity of Young’s double slit experiment, and decided to become a physicist. I enrolled in a BSc at the University of Sydney, in 1984.

In 1986 I completed my BSc with a distinction in my physics major, which to that point was the greatest achievement in my life. After that, I became a schizophrenic. As I was sinking into my schizophrenia, I taught myself to write pop songs, with the assistance of Julian another of the members of my 1982 rock band, and the Beatles, and Bob Dylan. I also started my research in physics. By the time I was admitted to psychiatric hospital, I had written my first scientific work, “A Quantum Theory of Electrodynamics”, and I typed it up and sent it off for publication during those first few months in hospital. The paper was published in three installments in the Toth-Maatian Review, Lubbock, Texas, editor Harold Willis Milnes, PhD, 1990-93. God bless Harold, he is dead now, but he’s the only physicist or chemist who ever gave me a break.

I kept writing physics, but never had another publication. I completed my BSc with honours in 1998, and my brother died between that and my commencement of my MSc, (Quantum Fields and Fundamental Forces), at Imperial College, London, November, 1999. I passed the coursework exams, but failed in my initial attempt at the dissertation. I then attended a six month string theory conference at the Institute Henri Poincare in Paris, organized by Kelly Stelle, one of my supervisors at Imperial College, who taught me Bosonic String Theory and Supersymmetry at Imperial College. In Paris I wrote my second attempt at my MSc dissertation, “Duality and M-theory”, which I completed on my subsequent return to London. Kelly Stelle said, “It looks like a successful dissertation to me”. My other supervisor, Ray Rivers, was also pleased with it, and I am very proud of this work. Its chief achievement is to account for the 11th dimension that M-theory receives as in incorporates 10-dimensional superstring theory.

Back in Auckland, 2001-2004, I completed a Diploma in Horticulture. I then returned to Sydney. I started a second BSc with thoughts of doing honours in Chemistry, (Nitrogen Fixation), to complement my horticulture. However, I got into smoking a bit of pot and lacked the motivation to continue. So I attempted a PhD in Solar Flares with my University of Sydney Physics Honours supervisor, Don Melrose. It didn’t work out, and I was asked by the faculty to discontinue, after 12 months.

I went back to my BSc, but became a “student at risk”, after failing in four of my six attempted chemistry major units. So I thought, “stuff you, Faculty of Science, the Faculty of Agriculture has offered me the opportunity to do an MAgr, on account of my achieved qualifications”. It took me four years to get my MAgr, but I got there. I then returned to my BSc, in 2012, and at the same time became a competition tennis player with the Sydney University Lawn Tennis Club. (I did do a semester in the Badge tennis competition in 1998, when I was doing physics honours). In 2019 I was awarded a certificate of appreciation for my longstanding association with the SULTC.

I drifted in and out of the BSc, discontinuing two or three times, before finally getting it completed in 2019. I had had enough of Sydney and the University of Sydney. I had been convicted of plagiarism in a biology report, and suspended for some unwise comments I made to a biology lecturer concerning the 5.5/25 I was awarded for a laboratory research project. So I had misadventures in biology but put this all behind me with a 65% credit in Plant Science, a third year biology unit. To this day, that would be my idea of a job, to teach that unit at some horticultural institute in New Zealand. Unfortunately, the horticulture unit where I did my diploma, at Unitec in Auckland, closed down many years ago, I think I would definitely have got a job there had it not closed down.

So I decided to get out of Sydney. I returned to Auckland, but had no luck either getting into a Masters degree in Chemistry, (I had finally succeeded in my quarter of a century quest for a chemistry major), or in getting a job teaching Plant Science. For the record, I have written a paper on surface tension and capillarity in plants. I learned about this doing a filler unit for my second BSc, Physics 1 (Life and Environmental Sciences). Physics currently can only account for plants less than 60 cm in height transpiring water – I have accounted for transpiration processes unlimited by the height of the plant. This paper is one of my nest eggs, and I intend to publish it as a treatise along with “Euglena, a Biological Cell”, (the work for which I was accused and convicted of plagiarism), and my work in Quantum Gravity, the three of them together as one succinct piece.

In Auckland, however, I have continued my research in physics. I wrote many pieces in my years in Sydney, 2004-2019, culminating in my 150 slide Power Point presentation in Quantum Gravity. Back in Auckland, in six months, I wrote “Grand Unification”. The six months after that have been busy typing it up, making very extensive alterations and additions, then the long process of getting it ready for publication, with Amazon, with the help of Kindle Publishing, and the proof-reading process has been lengthy and laborious.

Also, in Auckland, I have joined a fantastic tennis club, “Next Generation”, where I have had many rewards on the tennis court. I have found a place to go where I can do art and music recording. I have multi-tracked a number of Beatles songs, and now a Rolling Stones one as well. I have done the guitar tracks, and also percussion, (tambourine – myself, and shaker – my producer). We only need to get a bass player to add the bassline, then we’ll be well on the road to release of a CD. My artwork shows promise. I have been called an inspiration by my fellow students.

In view of all I have been through and all I have achieved, I think it’s time for my toil to be rewarded with a Gibson Trini Lopez semi-acoustic guitar, like my uncle used to have. My father has agreed to go halves with me in this spectacular instrument, which is available to me at a discounted price of US$5,500. I have placed an order for it, and it will be shipped out to me from the US, straight out of factory, in January.

James Russell Farmer,

26 November, 2020.