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physicsworld.comCareersmonitoring system that allows us to keeptrack of repairs, so we always know the statusand the history of each product. This enablesus to analyse our records and detect sys -tematic problems, and thus provide valuablefeedback to product management and R&D.The next step will be to implement a ticketsystem that also keeps track of communicationswith individual customers. This is somethingthat will become really import ant assoon as the number of support em ployeesexceeds the current head count of two.This kind of structural, long-term workrequires a certain amount of attention and“focus”, but my day-to-day work most ofteninvolves the exact opposite: namely, I needto react rather than act. There is a constantinflux of service requests and at times my colleagueand I have to juggle 10 or more ofthese without dropping a single one. Unlikein science, where one usually concentrateson a certain problem for an extended periodof time, in my role things tend to get blurryrather than focused. Finding the time towrite this article, for example, required acombination of time management and luck:I happened to encounter a relatively quietphase when my attention was not beingpulled in different – and often diametricallyopposite – directions.Working in a mid-sized hi-tech companyis a big challenge for those of us involved insupport because the firm’s products arediverse and the cycle for innovations is short.In order to stay ahead of the curve commercially,the firm is constantly developing, marketingand selling new products. At Toptica,many of the products are customized, so weneed to bring ourselves up to date all thetime. This means that very often I am confrontedwith problems I have not heard ofbefore; in fact, there have even been a fewoccasions when customers have called askingfor help with a product that I did notknow even existed!In addition to these technical challenges,my work requires patience, communicationskills and empathy. It is important to remainaware of the fact that behind each technicalissue there is also a real person with a problem.Working in support also means thatmost often one is confronted with weaknessesand flaws in products rather thanstrengths, and at times it can be hard toshoulder the collective responsibility for,say, a faulty laser. On the other hand, it is im -mensely rewarding to be able to quickly helpa student who has become stuck in the middleof an important experiment. So, ul -timately, I do contribute to scientificpro gress – just in a rather more subtle waythan I had originally imagined.Harald Ellmann is the service manager forToptica Photonics in Graefelfing, Germany,e-mail harald.ellmann@toptica.comOnce a physicist: Fausto MoralesPuzzle-games designerFausto Morales describeshis career as “a nomadicadventure in pursuit ofinteresting problems”.His book Zigzagrams waspublished by AuthorHousein 2009Why did you decide to study physics?While reading books like Paul Davies’ The Edge ofInfinity, I gradually felt the urge to explore the lawsthat rule our universe. I anticipated a fascinatingjourney filled with beauty on both sides of the road,and my dream came true in the late 1980s thanksto the extraordinary faculty and curriculum atSonoma State University in California. As anundergraduate student there, I had the rareopportunity to engage in serious research onbinary-star systems. Once I started doing graduatework at the University of Michigan, this experienceenabled me to work in a high-energy-astrophysicsresearch team led by James Cronin, who shared the1980 Nobel Prize for Physics.What led you to switch to pure mathematics?A superb graduate series of lectures on grouptheory for physicists, taught by Karl Hecht atMichigan in 1990, helped me realize that I wasbetter equipped to understand and enjoy algebraicstructures in pure form, devoid of the complexityintroduced by their advanced applications inphysics. By the end of the course, I concluded that Ihad become far more interested in groups for theirstructural properties than for their contributions totheoretical physics. It was time for me to switchgears and explore group theory.What did you do next?My eclectic academic background – anundergraduate physics degree, graduate work inphysics and computer science, and finally adoctoral programme in pure mathematics – hasallowed me to hop from one field to the nextwhenever I have been tempted by an interestingchallenge. Initially, I used physics, mathematicsand object-oriented computer programming totackle intriguing problems for the aerospaceindustry, such as automating aircraft routegeneration to maximize pilot safety in hostilescenarios. Next, I worked on speech-recognitionsystems aimed at automating the interpretation ofmessages uttered by humans, without help fromintervening menus. Then I moved on to developdata-mining methodology, mainly for financialapplications, an activity that I currently juggle withlogic-game design.What are zigzagrams and how did you comeup with them?A zigzagram is an extension of Sudoku. Eachcolumn and row in a zigzagram contains thenumbers from one to nine, but with the additionalcondition that every compartment must contain anodd number of odd numbers. Because the newcondition would be redundant in the familiarsquare-box partition, zigzagrams incorporatecompartments of varying sizes – named“zigzagons” because of their twisting appearance.The rule about odd numbers introduces a newdimension into the thinking mix, enhancing the“systematic search” themes of Sudoku bycombining them with elementary ideas that emergefrom the logical implications of this odd–evenparity rule.What are you working on now?In my “day job” I am currently working as anindependent consultant on decision algorithms forfinancial applications such as e-trading. But I amalso progressing towards publishing two othernumber-placement games that, like zigzagrams,involve repartitioning the 9 × 9 square andextending the rules of Sudoku so as to provideplayers with a wider variety of logical themes to mixinto their reasoning processes.What was it that sparked your interestin puzzles?It must be innate, since I have always enjoyedsolving original problems. I like chess puzzles justas much as word or number puzzles, as long as theycall for creativity.If you could offer one piece of careersadvice to physics students today, whatwould it be?I would say, quoting Albert Einstein, that “inmoments of crisis, only creativity is more importantthan knowledge”. All physics graduates have beenthoroughly trained to adapt to any kind of jobmarket – and even thrive in it – by virtue of theirsuperior ability to tackle new problems. I think thatan open mind is the best career asset for a physicsstudent today.● www.zigzagrams.comTo make the most of your physics degree, visitwww.brightrecruits.comPhysics World May 201059