The wave I

When I go to a museum on my own, something that happens fairly often when I’m traveling to meetings or seminars, I often set myself a ‘mission’ of something in particular I want to see. I go hunting. Along the way I see lots of interesting things, but if my mission is a success, I get a kick out of it. And generally reward myself at the nearest, um, establishment, with some ‘tea’. So when I found myself in London, I decided to head to the British Museum to see Hokusai’s famous Ukiyo-e woodblock print, ‘The Wave.’ But it wasn’t on display. I asked at the print department, and they informed me that if I would like to see it, I would have to put all my belongings in a locker and they would bring it to me, which they did. And there we were, The Wave and me, just me, face to face for as long as I’d like to sit there. Stay with me, there will be a point, but hey, it’s an iconic image. The Wave, I mean, not me sitting there. The copy I sat with was printed in six colors, plus the white background: three shades of gray, three shades of blue. There was Mt Fuji in the background, and the monstrous wave descending on a small boat with two hapless crew barely visible in the bow, and eight more huddled in the aft. Another boat was visible in the distance. There were flecks of foam in the gray wash background, which was almost as detailed as the foreground. Breathtaking. I looked at it for what seemed like hours, and when finally I motioned to the curator that I was finished, he said, ‘already?’ Very English. But that isn’t what I wanted to talk about, really. Like a fishing boat in a storm, survival in science is a group effort. We are pummeled by the reality we are struggling to explore, and if we try to go it completely alone, we might survive, but our chances are not good. Some lead, some follow, but as a group, we keep going, and hopefully learn something along the way.