On dense matter and dense language
Saturday 25 October 2008 at 16:17 UTC
The UK’s Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) has this week published a press release about some fascinating new research into the physics of condensed matter. By looking at the scattering of X-ray laser light from a compressed sample of lithium metal, STFC and Oxford University scientists have found that ultra-dense matter exists in a state intermediate between solid and gas over lengths greater than a third of a nanometre. Condensed matter is often described as a charged liquid, but over sub-nanometre distances it behaves more like a gas.
As for the practical significance of the work, the very first paragraph of the press release refers to “cleaner energy”, which turns out to be nuclear fusion. I can fully understand why the STFC chose to present the work in this way, given the political pressure on research institutes to promote the commercial or planet-saving implications of their work. But pure science of this quality could do without such spin.
How do the STFC’s scientists describe their efforts? According to Gianluca Gregori:
“[The study] shows practical applications for controlled thermonuclear fusion, and it also represents significant understanding relating to astrophysical environments found in the core of planets and the crusts of old stars. This research therefore makes it not only possible to formulate more accurate models of planetary dynamics, but also to extend our comprehension of controlled thermonuclear fusion where such states of matter, that is liquid and gas, must be crossed to initiate fusion reactions. This work expands our knowledge of complex systems of particles where the laws that regulate their motion are both classical and quantum mechanical.”
These are accurate and carefully-chosen words, but even with serious sub-editing their impact is minimal, lost as the meaning is in a nest of sub-clauses. This story is a very nice illustration of the challenges involved in preparing science news for public consumption, and the two cultures that exist within the science and technology community. On the one hand we have communications specialists with an eye to linguistic style and impact, and, on the other, researchers constrained by a rigid linguistic mindset. The struggle is to find a synthesis in this dielectic.
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Saturday 25 October 2008 at 19:54 UTC
Francis,
I’m not sure two commnities exist. Rather that there is a scale of ability that a researcher has to tease out the essence of the story for the audience they are addressing. The best stories are those that are continually retold and refined, but with new research the story is at the very start of its journey.
The most interesting part of this story is getting to the bottom of the statement that the results indicate a new state of matter.
It actually looks that the release was written at speed to meet the Nature dedline, and that press officer and scientists didn’t have time to refine the story. Instead they recycled bits of material from other similar work, and took the rather cautious line in quotes.
Saturday 25 October 2008 at 22:12 UTC
“I’m not sure two commnities exist.”
OK, I’ll qualify my statement a little, following Martyn’s comment.
In some institutes the dialectical synthesis I call for exists already. But from my experience as a journalist in dealing with science press officers and researchers, I’ve found that in many universities and state-managed labs there are two distinct communities at work when it comes to press and public outreach.
What happens often is that I read a hyped-up press release on the wires, and contact the researchers directly. Following a brief introduction I then raise a number of questions designed to elicit publishable comments, but which show that I have a research background.
On countless occasions I’ve had researchers come back to me and express frustration with the way in which stories about their work have been spun by institute and research council PRs. There is often an acknowledgement that communications specialists are needed to ensure that outreach material doesn’t read like peer-reviewed papers, but at the same time annoyance with compromises in technical accuracy.
The problem here is one of communication between the researchers and PRs – i.e., there are two communities functioning in parallel, but with too little real inter-communication. Haste in preparing press releases to meet deadlines is indeed a factor, but I see the same things happening at other times.
Sunday 26 October 2008 at 05:33 UTC
“… lost as the meaning is in a nest of subclauses.”
I really don’t see that. The para. you quote is clear, precise and elegant; this is unsurprising, since specialists, especially when writing for other specialists, are striving to make an impact. Certainly, they sometimes fail, but not in this example. (BTW, I’m not a physicist.)
Sunday 26 October 2008 at 13:02 UTC
You may not be a physicist, Nick, but you are a mathematician. That paragraph reads like something out of a peer-reviewed paper, and the language is not suitable for press or public outreach material. It is precise, but hardly elegant prose, and is clear only on very close reading. That said, I’ve seen much, much worse. The worst offenders, in my experience, are PhD students who have adopted the style and uniform of academic research, and haven’t yet learned to think outside the box and consider the wider implications of what they are doing.