Nuclear Education - Front Page

Nuclear Education - Front Page

This page contains brief information on, and links to, other documents by me on Nuclear Education

The Shadow of the Bomb: a study of degree-level nuclear physics textbooks

I present a textual analysis of 57 nuclear physics textbooks for senior-level physics degree students. The work investigates how the textbooks relate to an aspect that is relevant and important but almost wholly avoided, namely nuclear weapons. The majority of the books do however contain expositions of other applications, notably nuclear power reactors. These expositions are often enthusiastic and occasionally even extravagant. When the apocalyptic arsenals that actually exist are borne in mind, the textbooks' asymmetry is seen to be highly problematic. I conclude from this study that a response to the nuclear situation in which we all find ourselves, based on a rational programme for long-term survival, rather than on psychological defences, has to come from all. It would be ineffective, as well as unfair, to ask specialist groups, such as those involved in producing textbooks, to act independently of the culture within which we all live.

(This document is a post-publication manuscript version of the paper published in Power and Education, vol 2, number 2 (2010) pp 152 - 166 (http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/power.2010.2.2.152 ). It differs from the published version in minor ways, mainly format.)

The Wisdom of Sages: nuclear physics education, knowledge-inquiry and wisdom-inquiry

In Part 1 of this study, The Shadow of the Bomb: a study of degree-level nuclear physics textbooks, I analysed the (explicit and implicit) attitude of 57 degree-level nuclear physics textbooks to nuclear weapons. One of those textbooks makes especially interesting and significant use of literary quotations and this is the subject of the present paper. I infer from this study that the quotations suggest a strong desire to express something important about wisdom, which is however powerfully repressed by the ideology of knowledge-inquiry.

A Brief Revisionist Note on the History of the Nuclear Age

This note is written as background to the paper The Shadow of the Bomb: a study of degree-level nuclear physics textbooks It is described as revisionist because, relative to the treatments that are to be found in degree-level nuclear physics textbooks, it attends especially to the military applications of nuclear physics.

Is That It?

First degree textbooks in nuclear physics emphasise the basic, or 'pure', physics of the subject. Reactor physics is also treated but the other major application of nuclear physics is not. Further, the texts are remarkably seamless - the asymmetry does not stand out.

Alan Cottey

The basic version of this page was created in 2009 and the page was last modified on 17 January 2011