Uncertain Principles: How Much Outreach Do We Need? Depends on What You Mean by “We”

If you want to argue that we have plenty of outreach going on in astronomy and particle physics, that’s fine, but to say that astronomy and physics outreach is sufficient for science as a whole (or even just physics, which I’ve heard people say) is just insulting.

Astronomy and particle physics aren’t the whole of the physical sciences. Astronomers and particle physicists are significantly outnumbered by people doing other types of physics– condensed matter, atomic and molecular, materials science. Those topics don’t get anywhere near as much attention as things you can illustrate with a picture from the Hubble telescope.

“Yeah, but astronomy and particle physics touch on really big questions, that inspire people,” you say. “Oh, bite me,” I reply.

(If anyone is tempted to take this to the next level, I’ll remind you that we have lasers. Just sayin’)

If you give the narrow glimpse of physics as accelerators and telescopes, you make the same mistake as painting grad school as only a pathway to academia: you sin by omission.