Reflection: Male Tales Told During a Life in Physics

Throughout the chapter, Male Tales Told During a Life in Physics, Sharon Traweek seeks to convince the reader that a man’s journey to a career as a successful particle physicist in the United States has designated stages that are defined by certain intellectual and emotional qualities. Traweek points to the ways in which information is passed between and among students and teachers, as well as the personal traits that are sought after and observed in successful physicists at these stages to indicate the progression of the man’s career.

            At his undergraduate institution a male student is taught to think in an analogic manner, meaning that he is not necessarily asked to fully understand the details of his field but instead expected to see the differences between his and other fields (77). Traweek also points out that professors make it clear to their students that they are being given an abridged version of information which the professor thinks them capable of handling (80). Those who have shown an interest in particle physics, however, receive a confidence boost from the understanding in the physics community that particle physics is at the peak of the hierarchy of physics knowledge and is leading the way for all lesser fields (79).  

            The student’s transition to work at a graduate institution is marked by an expectation that they show a thorough understanding of the information being taught without providing any interpretations of that information (81). Instead they are asked to work hard and follow the instructions they are given, ignoring any desires they may have to interact with the field in a more critical way (83).  As a result of this intellectual culture, graduate students who show obedience and who are “meticulous, patient, and persistent” are highly valued by their superiors (82-83).
In the final stage of formal learning as a postdoctoral student, the physicist must learn to use his peers as a means of learning by discussing various topics with them, as opposed to going straight to the literature as he would in his past (86). He must also be comfortable with exuding enough confidence to convince others of his work’s significance (87). In these settings he must come to realize that “social eccentricity and childlike egoism” are accepted by his peers and superiors (91).