for the institute of physics, london 23rd february 2007 · for the institute of physics, london...

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Semiotic Analysis and Development: Physics

For The Institute of Physics,

London

23rd February 2007

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Objectives

To make Physics a more attractive option for young people at A-Level and Degree level.

We would therefore address the following from a semiotic and cultural point of view:

• what is the image of physics, historically and currently, in popular culture? What deeper

symbolism underpins these associations?

• how is the image of the physicist/scientist constructed in popular culture, both in reality and

popular culture?

• how is science more general currently encoded in our culture?

• what can we take from physics, building on the analysis above, to create salient and

intriguing concept platforms for the communication of physics as an attractive study option?

• can we build on existing associations, or do we need to build a new image of physics?

• we will present some conceptual areas designed to stimulate and inspire potential

communication platforms to address this

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The Symbolism of Physics

Physics as triumph of enlightenment

• 18th-century Enlightenment: darkness of the irrational and unknown is banished by the

illumination of human reason

• Belief in natural law and universal order

• Absolute confidence and faith in human rationality

• Secular view of the world and a general sense of progress and perfectibility

• Supreme faith in rationality

• Knowledge as a form of mastery

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Reverence

• Physics instils sense of breathtaking marvels,

wonders, weirdness and mystery of the universe

• Roots in the 18th-century concept of the Sublime:

insignificant humans must submit before the

awesome power and beauty of nature

• Physics gives us humility for our humble place in the

cosmic order of things

• "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

than dreamt of in your philosophy" - Hamlet

• Physics is about maintaining rather than destroying

sense of nature's wonder, expanding rather than

delimiting our sense of an infinitely vast universe

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Physics makes us see the world anew

• Physics defamiliarizes the everyday world,

makes it strange, new and exciting for us again

• Lay-people go about our daily lives

understanding almost nothing of the world, not

noticing any of the grand forces that shape our

everyday reality

• Physicists understand how the things that

surround us work: they have access to a

greater understanding of the universe that

everyone else merely occupies

• Physics is like a wake-up call, a new way of

experiencing the world

• Physics reinstalls our childlike sense of wonder

in the world — Why does the sun rise? What

holds the world together?

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Order

• Physics is about the search for coherence, unification,

order, elegance, symmetry, structure, and laws

• Physics promises that there is eternal truth and intrinsic

order to the universe, and that the rational human can

make sense of this fundamental order

• ie, popular books like The Elegant Universe:

Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the

Ultimate Theory (Brian Greene); The Road to Reality: A

Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe (Roger

Penrose); Symmetry and the Beautiful Universe (Leon

Lederman)

• Nature is governed by fundamental laws rather than

random or incomprehensible

• The stability of our lives fundamentally depends on the

intrinsic stability of the universe

• Classical mechanics imagines logical, predictable order

in the world

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Disorder

• Physics also tells us that nature spontaneously reverts to disorder

• World is non-purposive, directionless, chaotic

• Chaos theory/butterfly effect: intrinsic unpredictability of the world

• Theory of relativity & quantum mechanics introduce uncertainty, anti-determinist way of

thinking of world

• Probabilistic, unpredictable

• End of causality

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“Theory of everything”

• Physics is all-embracing, totalizing

• It covers "Life, the universe, and everything"

• Physics ponders all the big, universal questions

• A "unified theory of physics" explains the entire

universe, ie. Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time

sets out to tell us "Where did the universe come from?

How and why did it all begin? Will it come to an end, and

if so, how?"

• Physics is contemporary theology: seeks to make sense

of the universe and human's place in it

• It spans and leaps between micro and macro scale, from

tiny subatomic particles to the entire universe

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Pure Intelligence

• Like philosophy, physics is a pursuit of the mind

• A "pure" rather than applied or professional science

• Popular image of physicist is of theoretical physicist writing

mathematical equations, not sitting at a computer running simulations

• Idealizes abstract, disembodied intelligence as the highest goal of

knowledge, ie. figure of Stephen Hawking: atrophied body is irrelevant

to majesty of pure mind

• Physics is the apex of human sciences, the ur-science on which all

sciences are based

• Physicists are considered more intelligent than chemists, geneticists,

biologists, astronomers, etc. because physics is considered the most

difficult science

• Physics is not about democratizing intelligence (unlike computer

engineering that promises that everyone can feel "tech-savvy")

• Advanced maths is considered "hard" because it's counter-intuitive,

disembodied, divorced from sensory experience and observation of the

world, based on manipulating abstractions we can't see or perceive

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From Discovery to Mastery

• To seek knowledge of the universe is to seek mastery of it

• To know something is to exert control over it, to have it within

your grasp

• Will to knowledge is also will to power

• Physics driven by desire to know/control/manipulate nature

• Desire to not just describe, but to alter the physical properties

of the world

• ie, desire to be “Grand master” of nature, to go “From passive

observer to active choreographer of nature” (Michio Kaku,

physicist)

• Vastness of physics' object of study (the universe) translates

to vastness of physicist's power (power over the universe)

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Science Fiction

• Science fiction is about immersing us in a world that operates

under a totally different set of physical laws

• Injects everyday, basic, given laws of physics with new

strangeness by bending or exaggerating them

• Physics becomes fantastic, experiential world of fantasy - an

aesthetic frame that avoids any associations of dullness or

dryness in the subject

• Bent laws of physics are a powerful agent of action and

adventure, ie. we don't notice physics when we drop our keys on

the ground, but we do notice physics if we drop our keys and

instead they float into the air

• Physics is most compelling when exploring new, unfamiliar,

seemingly impossible phenomena (time loops! teleportation!

hyperspace! parallel dimensions!) that tweak the laws of the

normal world

• Line between fantasy and reality is enticingly blurred: theoretical

physics can be considered analogous to science fiction

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Infinite Progress

• Science assumes infinite forward progression

• ie, Morris's law that computer power doubles every

18 months

• Science is futurist rather than historical

• Inherently optimistic, faith in constant new advances

• At the same time, this future is open-ended because

scientific truths are always working models that can

be overturned by new research

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Mystery and Mastery

Stephen Jay Gould: “We should take comfort in the two conjoined

features of nature: first, that our world is incredibly strange and

therefore supremely fascinating…second, that however bizarre

and arcane our world might be, nature remains comprehensible to

the human mind”

• Physics is both the fundamental mysteriousness of the universe

AND the fundamental knowability of these mysteries

• Expansive, uncontained, uncontrollable frontier AND classified,

contained, domesticated pasture

• Supreme faith in Enlightenment concept that “the Mind of Man”

is capable of containing the vast universe

• Science offers uncorrupted and pure, objective truth, the loftiest

human endeavour

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Probable-Possible, my black hen,

She lays eggs in the Relative When.

She doesn't lay eggs in the Positive Now

Because she's unable to Postulate How.

This is the way the Physicist rides:

a quantum, a quantum, a quantum.

This is the way the Agronomist rides:

I plant 'em, I plant 'em, I plant 'em.

This is the way the Philosopher rides:

O Plato! O Plato! O Plato!

This is the way that the Rocketman rides:

JATO! JATO!! JATO!!

(QUANTUM: The quantum is only a tittle or jot: On a little theory hangs a lot.)

from The Space-Child's Mother Goose by Frederic Winsor (1956)

• Cult children's book amongst scientists captures witty and cheery but also metaphysical and poetic

dimension of physics

• ie, poet Paul Valery describes a poet as a “cool scientist, almost an algebraist, in the service of a

subtle dreamer”

• a US college-level science course for non-majors: “Physics for Poets”

• Physics is like poetry — rigorous but romantic quest for beauty and meaning

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The Physicist in Culture

• Physics is purest, hardest, most cerebral and abstract of the sciences,

most disassociated from sensory observation of the world

• Physics is a field of giants, great men who shake the foundations of

human understanding (Copernicus, Newton, Einstein…)

• Enlightenment science and philosophy form bedrock of western

civilization's global dominance but physicists are almost never imagined

as women or ethnic minorities

• In the mind-body duality at the heart of western philosophy, whiteness

and masculinity is associated with rational, transcendent, objective,

civilized mind and blackness and femininity is associated with

emotional, irrational, primitive body

• Physicist is antithetical to athleticism, virility, sexuality

• Most famous contemporary physicist Stephen Hawking manifests idea

that theoretical physics is “all in the mind”: his limp, paralyzed body is

irrelevant to the greatness of his mind

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Great Power, Great Responsibility

• Like superheroes, physicists have vast power at their fingertips, but show

their true mettle through restraint, using their power only for good, ie.

most well-known/brilliant physicist Albert Einstein spoke out against

nuclear weapons development (he knew how to destroy nations at will,

but refused to do it)

• Like Spiderman's mantra, "With great power comes great responsibility"

• Comic book physicist/scientist superheroes:

• Justice League's Ray Palmer, The Atom and physics professor by day

• Fantastic Four's Reed Richards, Mr. Fantastic and scientist, most

intelligent man on earth

• Watchmen's Doctor Manhattan, perfectly sculpted physical and mental

ideal with God-like ability to bend time and matter at will, but also

becomes disinterested in human affairs

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Dr Who (new)

• Time travel breaks most fundamental,

unshakable experience of time as linear,

irreversible, and continuous

• Power to travel through time is therefore

ultimate power

• Doctor Who: gleeful, whimsical, almost

anarchic spirit of discovery without a

specific mission or destination (unlike

Star Trek, where progressive, utopian

mission is to improve mankind)

• Doctor Who as humanist physicist:

understands vastness of universe AND

humanity's crucial place in it

• Able to grasp both cosmic scale and

intimate, personal scale

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Negative Imagery

• Cold, hard discipline devoid of emotional content, deals only in

abstractions rather than concrete human lives

• Rarefied rather than popular knowledge

• Have contempt for ignorance of normal folk

• Science as lofty, stuffy domain of sexually dysfunctional, nerdy

white men in lab coats with thick glasses who have no life

outside their research

• Scientist as working stiff at a lab, a boring professional within an

institution or bureaucracy rather than a rogue explorer or

discoverer

• Scientist is like a brain in a vat or a robot—not warm human

being

• Not fun, hip and smart, cheeky, sexy, or multicultural

• Again, scientific rationality viewed as antithetical to humanism,

individualism, and passion

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Mad Scientist

• Scientist is dangerous, megalomaniacal, sexually depraved madman

who pushes the boundaries of science too far, without considering

(possibly unintended) destructive consequences

• Scientific objectivism is reinterpreted as detachment from humanity

• Obsessed with the quest for nature's secrets, cut off from the world,

emotionally immature, physically unkempt, with crazy hair (or bald) and

manic laugh

• Dedication to science is obsessive or robotic/inhuman, suffering from

massive case of hubris

• Mad scientist reflects public anxiety about the unethical applications or

unintended consequences of science

• Fear of science and technology going out of control and running amok,

untethered by human morality

• ie, Dr. Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll, Dr. Moreau, The Invisible Man, Rotwang

from Metropolis, Dr. Strangelove, Doctor Doom, Lex Luthor, Doctor

Octopus, Dr. Evil in Austin Powers

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Brilliant scientist as a rogue hero

• Brilliant scientist as rogue hero

• Geek chic: geek as expert who effortlessly but irreverently negotiates a world dominated by

science/technology, but thinks on his/her own rather than following conventions

• Intellectually rigorous but not uptight

• Embraces a grassroots, entrepreneurial, do-it-yourself attitude rather than taking what is given

by corporate/military culture

• Embraces outsider, underdog, marginalized status as more culturally vibrant than mainstream

(even though geeks now have power, money and prestige)

• ie, Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page wear lab coats when evaluating new

products

• Mythbusters, Brainiac; Bill Nye the Science Guy; Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park; CSI,

Numb3rs

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Brilliant scientist as a rogue hero (cont)

• ie, “Why Does The Sun Shine? (The Sun Is A Mass Of Incandescent Gas)” by They Might Be

Giants

• ie, “Sounds of Science” by The Beastie Boys (“I've got science for any occasion/ Postulating

theorems formulating equations…Droppin' science like Galileo dropped the orange”)

• Physics can be chic - but only if it plays within its own discourse. It's not about imposing a

'Calvin Klein' vision of sexy but seeing what happens when physics and its innate cool ‘high-

concept’ aesthetic collide together

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Cultural Zones: Branding Physics

• It's important not to pretend that physics is easy: we should maintain that it is

appealing because it is hard

• Physics gives access to a body of knowledge and way of thinking that is not for

everybody — we should resist an overly democratic expression and celebrate the

fact implicit in physics is a positive sense of intellectual elitism, of challenge and

huge reward.

• The trick in making physics more attractive lies not in denying the subject's

intellectual rigour but using that as a springboard for presenting unusual,

inspirational, emotional, aesthetic and provocative imagery that really differentiates

the world of physics from other study-options

• So communications should throw down the gauntlet and offer challenge and

intrigue: the student who chooses physics at degree level should feel

complimented on her or his elevation above the dull masses

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Cultural Zones: Branding Physics (contd.)

• We would suggest a focus on the powerful aesthetic and conceptually intriguing

imagery that physics can generate, rather than emphasizing the human face of the

subject (by simple representation of students)

• Using the intellectual and aesthetic power of the subject will create an emotional

space for appreciating the challenges and rewards of the subject, that will be felt,

as well as weighed up on a rational basis

• Evocative representations, consistent with physics and its potential emotional

associations, may create a sense of warmth and intrigue that will bypass some of

the more negative perceptions of the subject (ie. mad scientists, cold, inhuman,

heartless etc)

• We have presented a few approaches below that attempt to brand physics in a

way that does not deny its central symbolic essence, but instead makes that a

positive emotional and conceptual cultural space for potential students…in a world

of the faked ‘high concept’ in branding, physics is the real deal!

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Creative Energy

• Physics is about imagination, inventiveness and a unique way of looking at the world

• Radical, courageous, creative thinking with your own head is required — it's a real challenge

but offers amazing possibilities

• It's not just about understanding past achievements but questioning and contributing to them,

maybe even making a real mark on the future

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Exploring the Everyday Infinite

• Range of study in physics is limitless — it's not circumscribed like other science subjects

• Physics explains both the everyday (rain, driving car, basketball, kungfu…) and the exotic

(time travel, black holes, parallel dimensions)

• Underpins both the deepest questions about human existence AND the coolest new electronic

gadgets: physics has got the Everyday Infinite covered

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The Universe is a Strange Place

• We explore and celebrate the counter-intuitive, the strange and the seemingly unexplainable

in communications

• Physics explains the inherent weirdness of the universe, with a sense of pleasure, discovery

and wonder

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How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later

• We offer potential students a sense of empowerment, of a genuine mastery over the often

incredible forces of the universe

• Physics as a positive elitism, provoking students to take up the challenge by offering the

biggest of potential reward: mastery of the universe

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Building the Future

• Physics is about cutting edge technology (not just writing equations on a

blackboard)

• Physics surrounds us, it is a vital part of our everyday experience (not lofty, ivory

tower pursuit)

• Physics has practical applications with profound effects on society: it's where

theory meets practice with amazing results

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Capturing the Light

• A visual language that centres on the emotional and metaphorical aspects of The Light

(enlightenment, hope, optimism) and conjures up the rational vision of the Light (universal

constant etc)

• Communications bring the emotional and rational aspects of light together in a seamless form:

physics explores the emotional and rational implications of The Light of Discovery and Wonder

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Mind Expansion

• Physics offers a voyage into the farthest reaches of the universe, sub-atomic world and the

potentials for expanding your mind

• Physics as an almost spiritual enlightenment that will leave you changed forever

• A chance to bring the wonders of the world of science-fiction a little closer to reality, all with

the power of your mind

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The Building Blocks of Reality

• Physics is all about getting a handle on the real essentials of life

• It's a field of study that puts absolutely everything else into perspective and creates a strange

but satisfying sense of the universe and ourselves

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Big and the Small

• Physics brings profundity and the mundane together with dazzling creative power

• Communications could juxtapose images of the wonders of physics with images of the

everyday — offering a visual puzzle that leaves the reader to make sense of how these

images are related

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The Poetry of Physics

• We celebrate physics as an aesthetic form of thinking, a realm of the imagination just as

creative as arts-based degrees — physics is a destination for visionaries and dreamers

• Physics is about the appreciation of real beauty and the power of the imagination to embrace

contradiction and think the unthinkable, like the best poetry or art: a means of celebrating the

universe through the medium of mathematics and theory, rather than words or paint …

for the institute of physics, london 23rd february 2007 · for the institute of physics, london...

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