Preposterous Universe

 
Isolated physicists

My blog-reading has been spotty of late, but I can't believe I missed this. A post at Crooked Timber by Eszter Hargittai points out that physicists can occasionally be, how shall we say, somewhat less than fully aware of work done in fields outside their own. Willfully ignorant, you might almost say. The example she uses is work on social networking and "small worlds," the study of connectivity between various networks. A fascinating topic to social scientists, obviously, but also amenable to study by physicists interested in complex systems and power-law behavior. Unfortunately, the two groups don't seem to talk that much. Here's a graph of an interesting example of a social network -- in this case, researchers working on social networks! They fall neatly into two mutually exclusive groups of self-citers, physicists in black and others in white.Some of my best friends are physicists, but far be it from me to defend them against charges of insularity or arrogance. (Also, Eszter is not only a fellow Chicago-based academic blogger, but also a chocolate lover, so she gets the benefit of the doubt.) Cosma Shalizi gives the perspective of a physicist who actually knows something about this stuff. Since I don't, I will go against type and keep quiet.

~ posted by Sean Carroll at 9:56 AM ~ link ~ ~ ~