The Many Voices of Modern Physics - by Joseph E Harmon & Alan G Gross (Hardcover)

About the Book

A Tribute to the Communicative Practices of Physicists in the Twentieth Century

Book Synopsis

The Many Voices of Modern Physics follows a revolution that began in 1905 when Albert Einstein published papers on special relativity and quantum theory. Unlike Newtonian physics, this new physics often departs wildly from common sense, a radical divorce that presents a unique communicative challenge to physicists when writing for other physicists or for the general public, and to journalists and popular science writers as well. In their two long careers, Joseph Harmon and the late Alan Gross have explored how scientists communicate with each other and with the general public. Here, they focus not on the history of modern physics but on its communication. In their survey of physics communications and related persuasive practices, they move from peak to peak of scientific achievement, recalling how physicists use the communicative tools available--in particular, thought experiments, analogies, visuals, and equations--to convince others that what they say is not only true but significant, that it must be incorporated into the body of scientific and general knowledge. Each chapter includes a chorus of voices, from the many celebrated physicists who devoted considerable time and ingenuity to communicating their discoveries, to the science journalists who made those discoveries accessible to the public, and even to philosophers, sociologists, historians, an opera composer, and a patent lawyer. With their final collaboration, Harmon and Gross offer a tribute to the communicative practices of the physicists who convinced their peers and the general public that the universe is a far more bizarre and interesting place than their nineteenth-century predecessors imagined.

Review Quotes

The Many Voices of Modern Physics presents an eminently readable, enjoyable, and understandable tour of scientific communication through the years--which is no small task given the time frame the book covers.-- "H-Net Reviews"

By casting well-known texts in a communication context, the book offers analogies and explanations that can be used by anyone involved in public engagement.-- "CERN Courier"

In The Many Voices of Modern Physics, Harmon and Gross expertly point out the different ways that thought experiments are used in physics research so that this text becomes an important contribution to our understanding of the complexity of how those experiments not only advance scientific understanding but also communicate complex ideas comprehensibly to nonspecialist readers. The authors' discussion of the use of metaphors, analogies, and visual representation is also very illuminating. Their book contains significant and thought-provoking insights about the ways that complex scientific ideas have been written about to teach and share them with various audiences beyond other subject specialists.--Heather Graves, University of Alberta

This exploration of communication in the physical sciences is much needed. Literary framing, engaging narratives, and careful analysis of communication artifacts come together to offer a tale that will pull the reader in and keep them along for the journey, even when--forget the complex equations--the very ideas seem so alien to the world we all apprehend. Indeed, the material is challenging, and the authors have masterfully handled the subject to provide nonphysicists with a vantage to observe this fascinating rhetorical world. Their engaging and enjoyable book makes a highly important contribution to fields of communication studies.--Ashley Rose Mehlenbacher, University of Waterloo

Those wishing to revisit the history of 20th-century physics may be charmed by the chorus of voices found in these pages.-- "Public Understanding of Science"

About the Author

Joseph E. Harmon (Author)
Joseph E. Harmon has been a science writer, editor, and manager for four decades in several divisions within Argonne National Laboratory. He is now working as a science communicator in support of Argonne's Physical Sciences and Engineering Directorate. As an independent scholar, he has coauthored five other scholarly books with Alan G. Gross. Harmon and Gross won Best Book in Technical or Scientific Communication from the National Council of Teachers of English for The Scientific Literature: A Guided Tour.

Alan G. Gross (Author)
Alan G. Gross was professor emeritus of rhetoric in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Minnesota, where he was a founding faculty member of the Rhetoric and Scientific and Technical Communication graduate program. He also was a visiting fellow in the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh and held appointments at several international universities. He was a prolific author of dozens of articles and author, coauthor, or editor of more than a dozen books in rhetorical theory, rhetorical criticism, and the rhetoric of science. He was named a Distinguished Scholar by the National Communication Association in 2014.

Photo by Sarah R. Gross