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21 - Plasmas and Solid-State Science

from Part IV - Atomic and Molecular Sciences in the Twentieth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

By
Michael Eckert
Edited by
Mary Jo Nye
Mary Jo Nye
Affiliation:
Oregon State University
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Summary

There is a common trait in reviews by plasma- and solid-state physicists of their specialties: an emphasis on the ubiquity of the subject matter with which they are concerned. “As we now know, planet Earth is but a small non-plasma island in a vast sea of plasma. Though tenuous in outer space, plasma is dense and omnipresent in the stars and in their coronas. In fact this ‘fourth state of matter’ – plasma – is seen as the dominant form of matter in the Universe,” a pioneer of plasma physics writes in a review about his discipline. With the same zeal but a slightly different emphasis, a German solid-state protagonist has created a link between the omnipresent solid matter and human culture: “Solid substances have given their names to the great historical epochs of mankind. Stone, bronze, and iron have caused epochal changes,” he begins in a book on the history of solid-state electronics. Now, at the end of the iron age, we are entering a new era. “Probably this epoch will be given the name of the crystal.… This new epoch perhaps will be called silicon age.”

What is the message behind such a “ubiquity” rhetoric? Beyond the pleading for recognition, funds, and other means of furthering plasma and solid-state physics, are we supposed to consider research in those omnipresent substances as a cultural obligation? In contrast to specialties like elementary particle physics, which appear to the public as more fundamental, the study of plasmas is regarded as a corollary to the quest for controlled thermonuclear fusion. Similarly, solid-state physics seems to derive its importance more from technological applications than from intellectual curiosity.

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The Cambridge History of Science , pp. 413 - 428
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2002

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