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\Title{ Stupidities } 
\author{
 by {\large\sl Jess H.~Brewer }}
\date{23 Oct 2021}
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I loved Jamie's term ``stupidities'' to describe 
those ``grounding mistakes'' that so often ignite creativity, 
both in science and in art.  
%% I was going to suggest that we 
%% call our group ``{\it Bonfire of the Stupidities\/}'' 
%% although Google finds this phrase in numerous places already.  
%% Still, I don't think anyone has a copyright on it, so let's!  

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\section{Stupid Physics Ideas}
Once upon a time I had an idea to produce muonic hydrogen in vacuum 
at thermal energies --- something that might be useful in testing 
some details of the weak interaction.  
The idea was that when a proton captures a muon it forms an atom 
that is 207 times smaller than a normal hydrogen atom.  
I figured that was more or less like a ``fat neutron'' 
and it would easily diffuse through a thin film of solid hydrogen 
and out into vacuum where we could study it undisturbed.  
It was a stupid idea because that's not nearly small enough 
not to hit anything.  It could never have worked, 
and I should have known better.  

Nevertheless, I convinced some collaborators to give it a try, 
and we submitted a TRIUMF proposal that was approved.  
We set up the experiment and looked at the vacuum region 
downstream of the solid hydrogen film\dots  
and {\sl we saw muons decaying there}.  

What had actually happened is that the muons were 
quickly transferred from the protons to 
the tiny fraction of deuterium in natural hydrogen, 
and by a stroke of luck solid hydrogen {\sl is\/} 
transparent to muonic deuterium, which was what we 
were seeing emerge into vacuum.  

This led to some interesting experiments on 
muon catalyzed fusion ($\mu$CF) which involves 
muonic deuterium combining with tritium to effect 
deuteron-triton fusion.  

Sadly, $\mu$CF will never be quite efficient enough 
to act as a power source; but it was interesting nonetheless.  
Has I been less stupid, we would've missed a lot of fun!  

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\section{Stupid Writing Ideas}
I've mentioned that I retired from my faculty position at UBC 
intending to carry out my original plan of becoming a ``credible'' 
science fiction writer --- and related the story of 
Margaret Atwood sitting at a fancy dinner next to a brain surgeon:
he said to her, ``When I retire, I'm going to write a novel.''  
And she said to him, ``That's amazing\dots  when I retire 
I'm going to become a brain surgeon!'' 

If this story is true, Atwood was unnecessarily cruel; 
but of course she was right: one does not become a novelist 
just by wishing to be one.  It takes a lifetime of training, 
just like brain surgery or writing Physics papers.  
And that training is not necessarily compatible with 
writing good novels.  In my case I had conditioned myself 
to get right to the point in as few words as possible, 
making myself as clear as I could right from the start.  

But while this was terrible training for novel writing, 
it was not too bad for short-short stories, 
{\sl rants\/} and bad poetry, 
which is where I've been focusing 
my wordsmithing urges ever since.  

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\section{Stupid Psychology}
Not all {\sl stupidities\/} are sources of creative inspiration.  
Some are {\sl invisible forces\/} inspiring destruction.  
We are all subject to many logical fallacies and endocrine-driven urges 
that incline us to make decisions that are unwise 
and hold beliefs that are untrue.  
With enough reinforcement, such beliefs can become impervious to 
contradictory evidence.  In most religions, this is called ``faith''.  

On the Internet it is called ``siloing'' and ``manipulation''.  
It is extremely profitable for the companies supplying ``social media'', 
since captured attention means more effective advertising, 
from which they profit.  
As has been recently revealed, such corporations are 
fully aware of these traps, and have expert psychologists 
designing newer, better ways to capture our attention 
and manipulate our behavior.  

Other users of these media 
also utilize these invisible forces to manipulate populations, 
up to and including elections and insurrections.  

By far the easiest person to fool is yourself.  
The ideas that need to be regarded with the most skepticism 
are those you believe to be your own.  
The ``Logical Fallacies'' poster should hang on your wall 
and be consulted constantly. 

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