Prestige Asymmetry in American Physics

Aspirations, Applications, and the Purloined Letter Effect

Bibliographic Data

ID4516393
AuthorsJoseph D Martins (0000-0002-8591-2150, University of Cambridge, corresponding author), Joseph D Martin
Year2017
Volume30
Issue4
Pages475-506
Publication date2017-12-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueScience in Context (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0269-8897 • E-ISSN: 1474-0664
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0269889717000242
PMID29417916
OpenAlexW2791689444
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited53

ArgumentWhy do similar scientific enterprises garner unequal public approbation? High energy physics attracted considerable attention in the late-twentieth-century United States, whereas condensed matter physics - which occupied the greater proportion of US physicists - remained little known to the public, despite its relevance to ubiquitous consumer technologies. This paper supplements existing accounts of this much remarked-upon prestige asymmetry by showing that popular emphasis on the mundane technological offshoots of condensed matter physics and its focus on human-scale phenomena have rendered it more recondite than its better-known sibling field. News reports about high energy physics emphasize intellectual achievement; reporting on condensed matter physics focuses on technology. And whereas frontier-oriented rhetoric of high energy physics communicates ideals of human potential, discoveries that smack of the mundane highlight human limitations and fail to resonate with the widespread aspirational vision of science - a consequence I call "the purloined letter effect

Argument (complex analysis · Frontier · Hard and soft science · Physics · Political science · Prestige · Relevance (law · Rhetoric · Social science · Sociology · Chemistry · Climate Change Communication and Perception · Law · Philosophy · Science Education and Perceptions · Space Science and Extraterrestrial Life

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