Some
words are richer than others. 'Transition' is definitely well endowed. To a
physicist it's used to describe a change from an initial to a final state via
some well-defined physical process: perhaps an electron moving back towards its
lowest energy state in the atom - the Ground State. In the process it
loses the excess energy that kicked it upwards in the first place by emitting
light, a photon. Such a transition occurs in a tiny fraction of a second,
almost instantaneously. The word has a wider range of connotations in our
personal lives however. In an earlier post I mentioned my plans to reshape and
re-focus my week, taking advantage of an excellent aspect of the occupational
pension scheme I'm in to retire 'flexibly': to reduce to three the number of
days I spend devoting myself to the University
of Kent and its School of Physical Sciences and to draw two day's worth of my
pension in order to create space for, amongst many other things, writing blog
posts. And so it was that Friday 25th October became my 'final Friday' in my
salaried job of so very many years; 1st November was, therefore, the first
Friday opened up for new things.
Changes of this kind are of course nothing like the
near-instant move of the electron from one defined state to another,
accompanied by an equally precisely defined packet of energy. No, this
transition has, in a sense, been coming about for months and is still a very
long way from being completed - not least because it involves a change in
mindset. Whilst my 'initial state' as
a full time academic was more or less well understood - mostly teaching and
research, alongside the administrative and managerial tasks that keep the place
going - the analogue of our electron's 'final state' remains largely unknown.
It's not even the case that I am now diving into wholly new things, such as
helping to promote Public Engagement in science, that were formally precluded:
it's more that the scope for shifting the balance of what I do has, I hope,
been enhanced. Quite how much of this change in focus will be due to good
planning on my part and how much the result of serendipity, which has, at the
surface at least, played a major role hitherto, remains to be seen.
There is plenty of 'evidence' for the direction in which
I'm currently travelling however, and for the next few months I'm content to
adopt the approach of saying 'yes' to whatever comes along, as long as it
sounds interesting; eventually I'll assess what has worked and what I ought to
steer clear of in future. A scan through my diary for the few weeks leading up
to Final Friday and then for the analogous period after First Friday provided a
hint of my current trajectory. In fact, it did more than that: I managed to
astonish myself at what is already 'on the cards' ...
I'm working through a book on Chaos Theory at
the moment for instance. It's an interesting topic in its own right, if
complex, but I now have an ulterior motive: I volunteered to act as 'science consultant'
for the librettist of a new opera inspired by Chaos, and now need to brush up
on my facts and understanding before trying to communicate its essence to
others. An inspiring ex-colleague of mine from many years back, Frank Burnett, is to blame for this in that mine was the
physicist's name he recalled when seeking out someone to bounce ideas off
before and during his work on the libretto. Not only have I already had great
fun talking through the basics of the project with him - he lives in a
converted windmill by the way, not the usual venue by any means - but we're now
jointly committed to speak about the project at a local Café Scientifique as well as to a group of Science
Communications masters students. I suspect (and secretly hope) that both
audiences will, in their own ways, pose challenging questions in equal measure
to their enthusiasm and support of the idea.
I've already written in general terms about my work with the excellent Turner Contemporary gallery and the animation that
emerged from our first endeavours, which were focused on looking at materials
from the viewpoints of both the scupltor and the scientist. I'm pleased to say
that we're continuing to interact via projects which, although necessarily
art-based and therefore some distance away from my 'comfort zone', might
nevertheless benefit from a scientist's perspective (and goodness knows, I
benefit from their perspectives). I'm now involved with another project, Life
in Technicolour which, as the
title suggests, has a focus on colour; it's being run in association with Artist Rooms
on Tour and People United. The
project has already given me a great afternoon of learning and talking about
the stained glass of Canterbury cathedral: learning both from the head of the glass workshop there, Léonie Seliger, and from the young
people at the heart of the project; talking about the why and the how of
coloured glass. As a follow-up I'm being interviewed at more length in a few
days from now. I also have a date booked to explore the potential for more
projects with the People United team - watch this space, or my Twitter feed (@Bob_MatPhys),
for the outcomes. Coincidentally, this is the second time I've been
celebrating the Cathedral's stained glass in recent days. A book launch last week represented
the culmination of a project prompted by an after-dinner conversation with
friend and local part-time author, Martyn Barr, on how
to convey some science and wider insights into stained glass to a younger
audience. The resulting book, Paintings
in Light, which represents Martyn's fourth 'young person's guide to
...', is the result; Léonie and I acted as consultants throughout.
Science is a self-evident theme in all this, but there is
another. Of equal, if not higher importance is reinforcing relationships and
building up new ones in the borderlands between science and the rest of life. I
love talking about the science of materials to people who have similar
interests, but I have begun to treasure even more highly those conversations
with people who wouldn't refer to themselves as scientists at all - not even
remotely so. Perhaps that's why I seem to have drifted towards areas of public
engagement wherein I am the curious outsider; it's demanding, but the potential
rewards are arguably more significant for me, certainly no less, than they are
for those with whom I'm conversing. We'll see.
