Dear professor Kang, How is your trip? I wish you a good health during the rest of the trip for the grandeur mission. As I told you in my previous message, I am still in the process of writing the supporting letter. However, the more I get into writing the harder it gets and the more I feel lack of my understanding on your preliminary version of proposal. So I gathered and compiled a few of my questions as follows. Since you asked for criticisms and suggestions, I'll try to play a devil, in some cases, to solidify my understanding as well as to help finalizing the "REAL" version of the proposal, even if I am not going to be the one carrying out establishing the institute (for now I'll call it as Korean High-Energy Science Research Institute, KHESRI). General comments : 1] A suggestion to distribute the copies of your preliminary version of proposition. Even though I understand that you didn't want us to put too much weight on the proposition, I do not think it is right, as a person formulating a supporting letter and thereby representing other signing bodies, to ask people to sign a letter supporting a proposition that they do not have clear idea of. As I pointed out several time in the Saturday meeting, people do not have photographic memories. Thus, I propose to distribute the copies of your proposition to all who want it and who are going to sign to support it. 2] Criticisms on the organization of the proposition. I think the proposition, as it is (I am playing a devil here!), is not sufficiently organized and well thought out. In my point of view, a proposition asking 5 billion wons of Korean people's tax money must be better organized. I also think this institute, KHESRI, once established, must exist forever. Therefore, it is a must that the HEP members to put in enormous amount of time from the proposal stage. You have indicated, during the meeting, that you will not be able to spend even a few quiet days in Korea until close to the end of February. Quite frankly, I do not see how this proposition can take its proper shape by some time in March, the time that you said you want the proposal submitted to the Ministry of Science and Engineering (MSE), while the person doing the work cannot spend enough time to finalize the proposal. You also said that this project was initiated bottom-up so that it has a firmer foundation than other projects which are initiated at the minister level (top-down). If so, the final version of the proposal has to converge opinions of all HEP members in Korea and has to obtain their endorsements. I do understand your worry of not being able to converge in short time for a timely submission of the proposal to MSE, but I strongly believe the capability of Korean HEP members to reach a sound resolution and even more strongly believe in one of the Korean proverbs "The hurrier you are, the longer path you must take." I think we all should keep in mind that "NO deal is better than a BAD deal." Since we claim ourselves scientists, we are obliged to show the Korean tax payers that we care about their money and that we appreciate their supports. Thus, in conclusion, I think that a serious reshaping, based on a well thought out plans and convergence amongst the HEP members, of the proposal is a MUST of the MUSTs. I suggest you, professor Kang and all the Korean HEP members, take enough time to think about 10s of years down the road and give highest priority to the future of Korean HEP, meaning the future of the next generations, in formulating the proposal. 3] Other types of fund utilization. In reading your proposition and discussing about it with others, I became asking myself a question that I don't have clear idea what the answer is. The question is : What is the absolute necessity of having an independent institute? You certainly tried to provide good reasons for it, but all those look more like politicians' and well dressed propaganda than sound scientific ones ( sorry for playing devil again). We are scientists not politicians, so we should behave like one. This doesn't mean that we should ignore political aspects of it but that we should emphasize scientific aspects much more than the political ones. Maybe I am saying it because I do not know the situation in Korea, but I think this is the sound and real bottom-up approach. There is no doubt that the existence of KHESRI will help concentrating resources and efficiently redistributing them, but why can it not be achieved by utilizing other means, such as sound collaborative efforts between HEP members, existing infrastructure at POSTECH, KNU, SNU, KU, etc. Why can't the money be used to increase human resources at many universities and re-enforcing existing infrastructure? 4] Disclosure of all the communication. I think it is absolutely necessary for all the people, who are going to sign the supporting letter, to know what is going on in order for them to be objective. Therefore, I suggest we, all those involved in formulating the supporting letter, professor Kang yourself, Dr. Yun, Dr. S.B. Kim, and myself, to communicate via e-mail and distribute the copies to all those at Fermilab. I attached the distribution list at the end of this message. In addition, I'll set up a WWW page under my home page at D0 and will keep copies of all the documents there so that anyone can access via WWW and see what we are doing. The full WWW address of the KHESRI page is : "http://d0sgi0.fnal.gov/~yu/khesri/". It can be connected from my home page "http://d0sgi0.fnal.gov/~yu/" by clicking on the word "KHESRI". Detailed comments on your proposition, item-by-item, playing even nastier devil!!! 1) Section - Background a. The first item : There are other basic particles than just quarks or neutrinos. There are heavy vector bosons (W,Z), Higgs, etc, under the standard model. In addition, there are SUSY particles that we do not have solid proof of their non-existence. b. The second item : QED and QCD are part of the standard model, thus listing QED and QCD separately along with the standard model seems redundant. I'd suggest to list SUSY and the standard model, instead. c. The third item : There are too much redundancy in this item. Some part of the sentence do not even make logical sense. I think one can improve this sentence a bit better. I have an idea as to how to improve it but since the sentence is written in Korean I can hardly describe here in a proper manner. d. The forth item : The example seems to explicitly broadcast what experiment you are working on. Since you are the public body, as long as you are the one writing the proposal, I think it's better if you pick an example that is completely independent of any specific ongoing project of yours. I think you can pick one of the LHC projects or LEP-II projects as an example. If you want I can find out some necessary information. e. The fifth item : The word "chi-yol-han" has to be placed in front of the word "gyung-jaeng". I also do not think it is true that all the intelligence rights that we obtain from international collaboration will be ours. Only the part that we participate in developing will be ours. f. The sixth item : Since you listed almost all the accelerator laboratories in this sentence, why not add a few more to complete the list? Even if you don't think it's needed, I think at least LEP-II has to be added. g. The seventh item : This sentence is a completely political and demagogical statement. However, it may be necessary. 2) Section - Korean HES (High-Energy Science) a. The first item : Wouldn't it be better if you add a few words, like "gug-nae-we-juk-eu-ro", in front of the word "sang-dang-han", also quantify what you mean by the word "sang-dang-han" and provide a reference? It is not clear from the last sentence why you say : "it is not enough, yet". b. The second item : Is it true that the two institutes will contribute significantly to the improvement of "all" areas of science? c. The third item : Wouldn't it be better if you provide what specific conditions or situations in Korea kept the experimentalist from doing their work and how they caused the inefficiency? d. The forth and fifth items : I think some references would be very helpful in these items to support your statements. e. The sixth item : Is the AMY project only HEP activity in the 80's? What about E653? Wouldn't it also be better to specify what you mean by the word "han-guk-team"? f. The seventh item : Are these 6 experiments the only ones that Korean teams participate? If not, to be fair, you need to either list them all or apply the previous suggestion 1)-d above. It is not clear in the sentence what the reason that the contributions are limited with its currently level of support is. Don't you think it would be better to specify and quantify? Of course, you tried to quantify in the next sentences but it doesn't seem to be enough. In addition, the numbers $20,000/ph.D. in Korea and $2,000,000/phD in Japan do not have references. I think your argument will be stronger by providing the sources that you got these numbers from. g. The 8th item : Again a propaganda, but sounds useful. However, I can play a devil again and ask you that while Korean HEP can provide world quality scientists with the current level of support why do you need more? Can Korea absorb and utilize the high-quality man power? Even if an institute is established, the positions will soon be saturated. What is the plan for this dilemma? 3) Section - The necessity of KHESRI. a. Item 1 : A completely political statement, may be necessary. The sentence would be better read if you switch the words around a bit. For example, take the word "oo-ri-na-ra-ga" out in front of the word "21th century" and put it behind "jin-eep-ha-gi" and modify the word "jin-eep-ha-gi" to "jin-eep-ha-nun". Just a suggestion. b. Item 2 : What do you specifically mean by the word "chum-dan-gi-sul"? Wouldn't it solidify the argument if you give a few specific examples? c. Item 3 : Another political statement, but it may be necessary to trigger the officials' interest. d. Item 4 : The question for this item is listed above as one of the general comments and questions #3]. e. Item 5. : The argument is not solid enough to strongly emphasize the necessity of the institute without providing counter arguments to #3] above. In addition, why did you not mention the LEP-II project at all? Is it because some Korean teams are already involved in the project so that it doesn't belong to the near future project? f. Item 6 : A lot of redundancy of the words can be found in the sentences. 4) Section - Operation of KHESRI a. The budget : The amount 5 billion wons came out of blue. Why not other numbers, like 6 billion or 3 billion? Is it because that is the amount the minister suggested? If so, it smells awfully like top-down project than a bottom-up one. As I mentioned several times in my general comments, this is one of the most sensitive item. I doubt that the government officials will just pass this item without asking questions as to what the money is for and how is it going to be used and distributed. It also is a MUST to have a well thought out plans for the future projects that this institute will be carrying out. The projects have to be layed out in a careful manner so that the continuous flow of projects exists and the matching fund can be justified. Sorting this issue out alone will take a long time, but I think there is no way to get around it, in order for Korean HEP community to have a long-lasting sound institute. Once projects are selected the proper amount of budget can be estimated. The institute then can request the fund and provide firm foundations for the request. b. Contributing areas : This item is the proper place to write down specific plans that people want to do in the future. The specifications of the projects have to also include very details as to where the requested money be spent. It is your obligation to Korean tax payers to specify and quantify every single detail. c. Operation : What do you mean by "yon-gu-won"? You mean postdocs? If so how many are needed? What are supporting human resources needed for an efficient operation? How many are needed? What are the necessary infrastructure that the institute has to have? How is the use of equipment shared? .etc.... I have many questions on this matter as I listed above, posing a government official, but I believe you also thought about these and these issues will be resolved as the proposal takes its shape. d. Structure : The director : How is "yon-gu-won-jang" (director) be chosen? Is it through a popular vote? If so, who has right to vote? What is the power given to the director? Can the person decide or overrule other peoples resolution? Is the director a term limited position? If so, how long is the director's term and how many times can the person run for it? Committees : What are the specific roles of the committees? Who can be the members of the committees? What are the terms of the committee members? How are they chosen? How many members are needed for each committee? Would there be a committee like PAC at Fermilab? etc.... Personnel : How is tenure defined? How many years can a person stay in the institute? What are the roles of the personnel? How would be the competition enforced? Who and how are the performance of each project team evaluated? On what bases the evaluation determined? etc... e. Location : Who evaluate and determine the location of the institute? What in detail the conditions that the competing parties have to meet? How are the conditions, such as 10,000 pyungs of land and 2,000 pyungs of building, justified? Who determines the conditions? Will there be a separate preparation-committee formed? Who will be the members? Epilogue: There are so many more questions than the ones I listed above that need to be addressed, answered, and specified. I hesitated to ask some of the questions listed above, because I am not a current member of Korean HEP community. However, I decided to raise the questions because you requested for us to do so. Although, some of them look minor detail, as people say, the details are devils. Without carefully thought out details, it would be very hard to establish and manage the institute. Distribution list : D0UR02::AHN, !Ahn, Seung-Chan FNALV::bockjoo, !Kim BockJoo FNALV::CHUNG, !Chung, Woo-Hyun D0UR02::CLKIM, !Kim, Chang-Lyung FNALD::dkim, !Kim, Dong-Hi D0UR02::EIWON, !Won, Eun-Il FNALD::intaeyu, !Yu, In-Tae D0UR02::jskang, !Kang, Joo Sang FNALV::kykim, !Kim, Kwi-Young FNALD::sbkim, !Kim, Su-Bong D0UR02::skkim, !Kim, Sun Kee FNALV::KBLEE, !Lee, Kyeong Bum Lee FNALV::myung, !Myoung, Sung-Sook D0UR02::suyong !Choi, Su Yong Choi D0UR02::SYJUN, !Jun, Soon Yung FNALV::UKYANG !Yang, Un-Ki FNALD::YKKIM, !Kim, Young-Kee D0UR02::YMPARK, !Park, Yeong Mouk FNALV::YSCHUNG, !Chung, Yeon Sei D0UR02::YSYU, !Yu, Yeonsik FNALD::YUN !Yun, Jae-Chul I appreciate your sacrifice of personal life for more grandeur future of Korean HEP and I am sure that every Korean HEP, no matter where they are, will hail your effort. I also promise that I'll keep working on writting the letter we promised in the Saturday meeting. It would help me pricelessly, if you can give me the answers for the above questions. Regards, Jaehoon