LIFE scientists may be making more headlines these days, but with centuries of solid success under their belt, physicists remain the 400lb gorillas of the scientific world.
Lumbering through remote areas of academic endeavour, highly territorial and all too aware of their strength, physicists are usually given a pretty wide berth. Few of us have much idea of their behaviour and habitat, and still fewer the ability or inclination to find out.
One who has is the physicist-turned-sociologist-of-science Harry Collins of Cardiff University in Wales. For the past 30-odd years he has been studying a group of particularly aggressive physicists…
