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\Title{ Ways of Working } 
\author{
 by {\large\sl Jess H.~Brewer }}
\date{01 Oct 2021}
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~

\centerline{\large\bf Agenda}

\begin{enumerate}
\item Participants give a 10-15 minute presentation on their way of working followed by Q\&A. 

\item Each group discusses how they might incorporate IF ideas into their practices and the group dynamic. 


\item This is followed by addressing the elephant in the room, whatever that might be? 

\item Participants discuss whether they would like to make a group work, an individual work, both or a cluster of works. 

\item A visual map and/or notes are made of the discussion and collected by Research Assistant Scotty Alveberg for the LOoW Central Repository. 


\item Production Work: Each participant makes an iteration (Iteration I) of their ideas (drawing, diagram, object, poem, {\it etc}.) 

\end{enumerate}
\newpage
\section{ My Way }

First let me address the fact that {\sl I do not work at all\/} 
since retiring from the UBC Department of Physics \& Astronomy in 2011. 
I just exhaust myself pursuing hobbies and/or obsessing over issues 
that I consider important, like politics, science and education.  
Of course, the case could be made that this equally well describes 
what I used to do {\sl before\/} I retired, with the possible 
exception of marking exams and letting people know that they didn't 
measure up to UBC's standards.  But let's not go there.  

You may expect that, as an experimental physicist, I live by 
the Scientific Method.  You would be correct, but you might find 
that my version of the Scientific Method differs from the 
version you were taught in high school: 
\begin{enumerate}
\item Make an Observation. 
\item Form a Hypothesis to explain the Observation.  
\item Use the Hypothesis to make a Prediction. 
\item Test the Prediction.  
\item If the Prediction is borne out, return to (3).
 If not, return to (2).  
\end{enumerate}
Many people imagine that if the Prediction is borne out, 
the Hypothesis is ``proven'' and you can relax.  
{\bf No} actual scientist believes that!  
Unfortunately, many {\sl nominal\/} scientists allow 
their human ``confirmation bias'' to influence them 
and make exactly that mistake.  Hopefully not me, usually.  

Meanwhile, there's more variety in the Scientific Method 
than this simple description covers.  
For instance, in Elementary Particle Physics 
(a.k.a. Subatomic Physics or ``SAP'') 
step (1) is usually encountered as part of step (4) 
in a previous ``round''; then steps (2) \& (3) are 
developed over a period of years or decades 
by one or more (often {\sl many\/}) 
{\sl Theorists}, a.k.a. ``Theoreticians'', 
whose job is exclusively to think, calculate and 
come up with Hypotheses worth Testing; 
then step (4) may take billions of dollars and 
decades of effort by hundreds of Experimentalists 
organized into an army of specialists by a Group Leader 
who will get the Nobel for the army's work, 
along with the head Theorist who thought up the Prediction.  

As you might deduce from my description, I don't care for 
this particular Way of Working, even though I acknowledge 
its importance and am duly awed by it.  
It is truly astonishing how effective 
such an army of specialists can become 
and what stupendous accomplishments they can achieve.  

But I kind of like the version where step (1) consists of, 
``Huh, that's weird.  I wonder what's going on there,'' 
step (2) springs unbidden from my Imagination 
and step (3) follows without excessive effort.  
Step (4) ideally follows immediately with minimal effort, 
but I'm often willing to write proposals, defend the experiment, 
gather resources, build apparatus, sit shifts 
and analyze data if that's the only way to get the Test done.  
But my time limit is about a year, and I usually need some 
collaborator(s) to get it done.  

Meanwhile I can make lots of other Observations, 
come up with lots of Hypotheses and Predictions, 
and have a ball while I'm waiting for the next step (4).  
In this way I can do lots and lots of experiments 
in one lifetime, whereas the SAPs often spend 
their whole career on one big Test.  
I'll never win a Nobel, but those things 
ruin people's lives anyway!  

This Way of Work allows my Imagination to have a lot of Fun, 
and I suspect it feels very much like an Artist's Way of Work.  

\section{ Ways of Invisible Forces }
\begin{quotation}
``In most of the operations of the mind, each American appeals only to 
the individual effort of his own understanding.'' 
-- Alexis de Tocqueville, 1835. 
\end{quotation} 
IMNERHO [my favorite acronym, which is starting to scare me] 
this arrogant intellectual self-reliance is 
a wellspring of originality and genius; 
it describes my idol Richard Feynman almost perfectly, 
except for one little, absolutely necessary, addition: 
{\sl genuine brilliance} -- which Feynman had 
and I don't\dots\  much less the Q-anon ``autodidacts'' 
who have raised ignorant arrogance to an art form, 
an {\sl invisible force\/} driving 
the collapse of democracy, 
the propagation of a pandemic 
and the onrushing destruction of the Climate Crisis. 

\section{ Elephants }

See above.

\section{ Collaboration? }

I possess extremely limited artistic talent.  
Let's say ``none'' for the purposes of discussion.  
I can {\sl write\/} fairly well, I think, so 
I offer my services as a critic or a documentarian 
for whatever sort(s) or project(s) you folks conceive.  
I will try to rein in my own ``invisible force'' 
of arrogant intellectual self-reliance (see above).  

\section{ Map }

Who's making this map?  
In the past this was Ingrid's \& Randy's specialty.  
Their maps blew my mind.  I love making maps, but 
I don't have anything approaching their skill 
or visual creativity.  

\section{ Product }

Every product needs a delivery deadline.  When's ours?  
If I contribute, it will be in written form.  
I love writing poetry, but others probably don't enjoy 
reading it quite so much.  And don't ask me to recite!  

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