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Prestige Asymmetry in American Physics: Aspirations, Applications, and the Purloined Letter Effect

Martin, Joseph D.

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Abstract

Why 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.”

Citation

Martin, J. D. (2017). Prestige Asymmetry in American Physics: Aspirations, Applications, and the Purloined Letter Effect. Science in Context, 30(4), 475-506. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0269889717000242

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date May 17, 2017
Online Publication Date Feb 8, 2018
Publication Date Dec 1, 2017
Deposit Date Sep 18, 2019
Publicly Available Date Oct 4, 2019
Journal Science in Context
Print ISSN 0269-8897
Electronic ISSN 1474-0664
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 30
Issue 4
Pages 475-506
DOI https://doi.org/10.1017/s0269889717000242
Public URL https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1291374
Related Public URLs https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/274133

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