Weekly reflection

Coming of Age in a Weapons Lab

This expository article, from around the end of the Cold War, examines the culture of nuclear scientists and engineers at the Livermore National Laboratory, established in 1952. Through a series of interviews with Livermore personnel, it delves into the mindset and social consequences of creating weapons of mass destruction. Popular culture depicts such people as either highly patriotic and disregarding of life, or conflicted and forced into their position. In reality, coping is much easier and simpler. The secrecy surrounding the laboratory's projects creates a "social vacuum" that limits discussion of ethics and moral concerns, which are usually justified by the need for deterrence anyway. And like many other fields, euphemisms create a mental barrier between the scientists and the rather terrifying reality of just how powerful and devastating their work is; viewing detonations and populations as events and statistics is very similar to the constructing of new "worlds" described in the next article.

Also of note is how the article describes the process of nuclear testing as empowering, showing the scientists that even these powerful forces can be shaped and controlled by man. It's an interesting contrast to the more fearful reactions described by J. Robert Oppenheimer during the first nuclear test.

How Medicine Constructs its Objects

As I am probably one of the less squeamish individuals among my peers, I can relate greatly to what the article describes as "constructing a new world" when observing repulsive things such as dismembered human cadavers. To focus on the individual organ and tissue systems, one always needs to put aside their perception of the cadaver as a person. But I'm curious as to how much the use of cadavers contributes to this perspective shift. I think that with further advances in computing technology and virtual reality, it could be possible to use 3D models of human bodies instead of cadavers. If animated models of living, breathing human bodies are used instead of immobile, lifeless cadavers, would that help students associate the concept of organs, tissues, and cells more tightly with the social construct of a real live person? If so, it would help reduce the dissonance between the two views and perceptual shifts like the one quoted on p. 73 could be less jarring.

While I agree that the mindset of "checking off boxes" when interviewing a patient is good for efficiency, is there a point where too much humanity is lost when doing so? Treating the patient as more like a bag of symptoms is something that a machine could do as easily as any doctor. If sufficient advances in machine learning occur, I foresee a shift in medicine with doctors more concentrated in fields like psychiatry where human insight is more valuable, and automation tackling the more formulaic jobs.

Pilgrim's Progress: Male Tales Told During a Life in Physics

This was a very informative piece on the culture of physics, and the somewhat hypocritical aspects of it. It first describes the romanticism of past scientists experienced by undergraduates, which I wholly agree upon, and I would even add that this romanticism occurs earlier in life: the "science heroes" aren't just great professors of old, but also any of the various fictional tinkerers and craftsmen in popular fiction, such as the quirky weapons/gadget specialists in G.I.Joe or "Q" in James Bond. Notably, this kind of fiction is usually male-centric.

Despite the ideal of the objective, detached and cooperative physicist, the reading shows that real physics is anything but. Competitiveness is greatly valued, and the normally socially undesirable traits of aggression and egocentrism become advantageous. Perhaps this is why physics is male-centric, since these traits are popularly associated with men, and women are seen as peripheral, destined to take a backseat. But while I think these claims of sexism are reasonable (especially the imagery about "loving" and "penetrating" an academic subject), it would have been better if the author had addressed possible counterexamples.

Gender aside, the contrast between physics in America and Japan is fascinating. The collectiveness of Japanese society, as opposed to the individualism of America, contributes to physics culture in different but parallel ways. Japanese physics is dominated by koza, which are passed down as seniors retire, whereas Americans must build networks themselves, but both countries are seniority-dominated and reluctant to see major power shifts in their networks. Most interesting was how sexism is inverted between the two: Americans attribute independence and competitiveness to men, and the Japanese do the same with their opposites, cooperativeness and interdependency.

TL;DR physics is apparently full of posers.