Beijing photos 2

It was windy on Monday and today (Tuesday) so the air quality is much better than when I arrived. The pictures below are of the physics campus of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The tall building on the left is all condensed matter physics.



KITP Beijing (Kavli Institute) is the shorter red brick building on the right.



Last night I had Beijing duck with Seth Roberts. Seth has an interesting history. He started college at Caltech but transferred to Reed to study psychology. He was on the Berkeley faculty for many years but has moved to China and is now a professor at Tsinghua university. He knew Feynman and Jane Jacobs. We talked so long they closed down the restaurant around us!

If I recall correctly, Seth said the Tsinghua undergrads blow away the Berkeley undergrads he used to teach. He even said their ability to speak/write English was comparable(!), but perhaps it's a selected sub-population that would take a class taught in English.