By focusing on a specific episode of 20th Century physics - the discovery of parity violation in 1957 - the paper presents a study of the types of explanations of the crucial experiment as they are found in different editorial categories: a peer-review journal, a popular science book, an encyclopedia and a newspaper articles. The study provides a fine-grained description of the mechanism of the explanation as elaborated in non-specialist accounts of the experiment and identifies original, key-explanatory elements which characterize them. In so doing, the paper presents a reflection on the processes of transformation and adaptation implied by the circulation of knowledge - which features as a productive process in its own right - and shows which further insights a focus on explanation can offer to the current historical researches on science communication.
Bertozzi E. (2017). Toward a history of explanation in science communication: The case of Madame Wu experiment on parity violation. JCOM: JOURNAL OF SCIENCE COMMUNICATIONS, 16(3), 1-13 [10.22323/2.16030210].
Toward a history of explanation in science communication: The case of Madame Wu experiment on parity violation
Bertozzi E.
2017
Abstract
By focusing on a specific episode of 20th Century physics - the discovery of parity violation in 1957 - the paper presents a study of the types of explanations of the crucial experiment as they are found in different editorial categories: a peer-review journal, a popular science book, an encyclopedia and a newspaper articles. The study provides a fine-grained description of the mechanism of the explanation as elaborated in non-specialist accounts of the experiment and identifies original, key-explanatory elements which characterize them. In so doing, the paper presents a reflection on the processes of transformation and adaptation implied by the circulation of knowledge - which features as a productive process in its own right - and shows which further insights a focus on explanation can offer to the current historical researches on science communication.File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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