'could also be that particule astrophysics promise big stuff. Whether the origin of the universe and explaining God or 'just' Conjoiners Drive that would allow to match C.
An iPhone was wondrous the first time it got unveiled. You know the saying about seeing a camel for the third time?
I think Nigel Goldenfeld is trying to write a pop-sci CMP book, and I'm looking forward to it.
I think, and this is complete speculation with no empirics whatsoever, that comparing condensed matter systems to a new universe with different particles that do different stuff might be more engaging for the popular audience. I know if I were introduced to CMP that way, I'd be interested.
Having thought about Natelson's post a bit, I'm wondering: perhaps this all began with Cosmos? I do think that we need to look beyond just the books but consider science communications more broadly, most importantly, film and video. Throughout the 1980s I remember also a focus on particle/ astrophysics in e.g. Nova and other PBS series. The dramatic, reductionist language that particle/ astrophysics uses is really effective in the video format. So perhaps the videos drive the interest and inspire the book purchases?
I do think that "chaos" had a moment in the late '80s and early '90s, it'd be interesting to figure out why that didn't persist in popular physics.
Yeah, I think that the visuals are a huge part of this. They play a really big role in making it easier to give people a superficial idea of what's going on in astro/particle topics-- if nothing else, there are striking and memorable images whose meaning is relatively straightforward. Cond-mat does generate some cool images, but they usually need a lot of unpacking.
I thought chaos stopped being a major focus of pop sci mainly because there weren’t any further advances. Once you say “we can prove this system is chaotic” where do you go from there? (And if there is a real answer to that question beyond “gee whiz! now we can’t make long term predictions” then that reflects an interesting failure to popularize the fact…)
“ Low-energy experimentalists, on the other hand, are often doing their work in an entirely different place than the office where their computer is located, making it harder to dash off a quick tweet.”
…you know there is a phone app for Twitter, right?
It's still more of a transition from "let's tighten bolts on the vacuum chamber" to "let's see what's trending on the bird app" than switching between two browser tabs.
I don’t know if there is a generation gap or a different-people-multitask-differently gap here or what, but I jump back and forth between other things and Twitter app all day without much difference. Every activity has a few moments of down time. I’ve even tweeted while teaching a student one-on-one while waiting for them to hunt for info in their text.
'could also be that particule astrophysics promise big stuff. Whether the origin of the universe and explaining God or 'just' Conjoiners Drive that would allow to match C.
An iPhone was wondrous the first time it got unveiled. You know the saying about seeing a camel for the third time?
I think Nigel Goldenfeld is trying to write a pop-sci CMP book, and I'm looking forward to it.
I think, and this is complete speculation with no empirics whatsoever, that comparing condensed matter systems to a new universe with different particles that do different stuff might be more engaging for the popular audience. I know if I were introduced to CMP that way, I'd be interested.
Having thought about Natelson's post a bit, I'm wondering: perhaps this all began with Cosmos? I do think that we need to look beyond just the books but consider science communications more broadly, most importantly, film and video. Throughout the 1980s I remember also a focus on particle/ astrophysics in e.g. Nova and other PBS series. The dramatic, reductionist language that particle/ astrophysics uses is really effective in the video format. So perhaps the videos drive the interest and inspire the book purchases?
I do think that "chaos" had a moment in the late '80s and early '90s, it'd be interesting to figure out why that didn't persist in popular physics.
Yeah, I think that the visuals are a huge part of this. They play a really big role in making it easier to give people a superficial idea of what's going on in astro/particle topics-- if nothing else, there are striking and memorable images whose meaning is relatively straightforward. Cond-mat does generate some cool images, but they usually need a lot of unpacking.
I thought chaos stopped being a major focus of pop sci mainly because there weren’t any further advances. Once you say “we can prove this system is chaotic” where do you go from there? (And if there is a real answer to that question beyond “gee whiz! now we can’t make long term predictions” then that reflects an interesting failure to popularize the fact…)
“ Low-energy experimentalists, on the other hand, are often doing their work in an entirely different place than the office where their computer is located, making it harder to dash off a quick tweet.”
…you know there is a phone app for Twitter, right?
It's still more of a transition from "let's tighten bolts on the vacuum chamber" to "let's see what's trending on the bird app" than switching between two browser tabs.
I don’t know if there is a generation gap or a different-people-multitask-differently gap here or what, but I jump back and forth between other things and Twitter app all day without much difference. Every activity has a few moments of down time. I’ve even tweeted while teaching a student one-on-one while waiting for them to hunt for info in their text.