Physics Circle Jerk

[drewcypher]

As part of my job, I write news releases, in part to explain the very technical things we, in TV, do to the general public and tv writers. You know... morons. I keep the language very simple, direct and understandable

Comments

[junesrose]

OMG, this-> "Eggheads in France or some Europe place turned on their billion dollar black hole machine and nobody died and the earth didn't cave in and kill everyone."

It urks me so when the brainiacs or even not so brainiacs use their own lingo when speaking to other people, knowing full well that US MORONS don't know jack shit about what they're saying. Either that, or they completely lack the common sense to realize that not everyone has full scale knowledge in Particle Physics, or Archeology, or Immunohaemotology (yeah, blowing my own horn there while I'm at it). [I used to live next door to a proffessor of Astrophysics, and she was just...WAYOUTTHERE.] It just gives off such a pretentious attitude, that for me, anyway, turns me off. Where there could potentially be the opportunity to actually LEARN something, crap like this just turns me off completely. I know I shouldn't complain about the "dumbing down" to common folk, but, seriously? Yeah...

[starryniteynite]

THIS.

It's not even about 'dumbing down' it's being aware of your own lingo. I mean, it's smashing stuff together--make a comparison to a car crash or something. (ie: "It'd be like smashing two cars together at high speed to figure out what's inside them")

I think sometime science just genuinely forgets that not everyone has had the same training--it's a bit like a language, and for most of use, the only peole we talk to are others who speak that language. It's not arrogance so much as forgetting how much schooling it took to learn the language. It's like assuming everyone in the room speaks English when you're in the US. It might not be true, but it's an easy assumption to make if that's been your experience.

Most of the eggheads in my department just forget that TeVs aren't a standard unit of measure, or why colliders being cool needs to be explained.

CERN is usually better about this, tho. It seems like the 'public' press release got confused with the 'science publication' press release.

[junesrose]

Yes, exactly. I've always used the analogy of a washing machine when trying to explain what a centrifuge does.

Wish I had more time to comment further, but must head into said workplace, and actually use a centrifuge.

[starryniteynite]

Hope you don't mind if I jump in--I'm no particle physicist, but I am in a related field. And blerg to that press release--bad scientist, no biscuit

[starryniteynite]

sorry--the link didn't work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronvolt

I think my favorite comparison is that a mosquito's kinetic energy is about 1 TeV.So imagine two mosquito's flying at one another, full speed, hitting head-on.

[drewcypher]

Thank you for that wholly understandable, yet succinct and erudite explanation.

It seems antithetical to scientists to talk about "the God Particle," as opposed to a Higgs-Boson particle, but it is infinitely more descriptive to a layman. You're trying to discover the nature of the origin of the universe by attempting to discover this very iny thing. OK, I can relate to that.

Scientists FAIL when they try to rename a popularly accepted term. "The champagne bottle particle?" Boo. No. Let the marketers market and you do the brainiac stuff, alright professor?

[starryniteynite]

"The champagne bottle particle?"

*Headdesk*

[rachet]

"Eggheads in France or some Europe place turned on their billion dollar black hole machine and nobody died and the earth didn't cave in and kill everyone."

OH! Is THAT what happened? OK. :)

[drewcypher]

No. I disagree. The purpose of a news release is to write about your accomplishments in a way in which the lowest common denominator can understand.

Not everyone reads Wired or Particle Physics M(u)onthly (see what I did there?). Some people only read their local paper, or watch their local news and some people may only read Cat Fancy.

No, everyone doesn't know CERN is in Switzerland even IF they read Angels & Demons. To assume that all of your readers know what the hell you're talking about negates the need for a release in the first place.

And while I have more than a passing familiarity with CERN and the LHC project, I had no idea what 7TeV meant or even that CEST means Central European Summer Time until I just looked it up.

And you don't want someone to take your release to the web or wikipedia to decipher what it is you THINK you said. If someone doesn't understand what you're saying, as a marketer or public relations expert, you're doing it wrong.

[drewcypher]

And what IS the news here? Is that beams collided at 7TeV?

Or is it, "For the first time in human history, physicists at CERN fired opposing high-energy particle beams, releasing record amounts of energy equivalent to (huge explode-y thing) recording thousands of subatomic collisions which recreate events at the beginning of the universe. We are closer to understanding the nature of creation than at any point in our collective consciousness"

Or something like that. Which is better? I don't know; who is your audience? Scientists, in which case the first sentence is probably fine, though a little sterile, or the second?

They should have sent a poet. Why should I care about any of this stuff? It's too hard to understand, it's too esoteric, too nerdy, won't effect my life and on and on. You gotta make me care. Look at their Twitter feed from earlier. There was real passion there, real excitement. My point is that THAT is what should be in the release: the emotion, that OMG moment that reveals something totally new to most of us, that