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How to live with the Philistines

SEP 01, 1968

The physicist is surrounded by outsiders, be they relatives, other scientists, humanities professors or officials. He must increase his interaction with them to survive.

DOI: 10.1063/1.3035153

Henry E. Duckworth

To CLARIFY MY TOPIC I quote the Concise Oxford Dictionary definition of the word “Philistine”: “one of an alien warlike people in South Palestine who harassed the Israelites; (facetiously) an enemy into whose hands one may fall, e.g. bailiff, critic, et cetera; (in German universities) a nonstudent; an outsider; (or, in general) an uncultured person, one whose interests are material and commonplace.” I shall use the word in the sense of an outsider or, I might say, a nonphysicist. Thus, a rewording of the subject for purposes of clarification would be “How to live with nonphysicists.” There are, of course, many classes of nonphysicist, but I shall have space to refer to only a few of the principal types.

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More about the authors

Henry E. Duckworth, University of Manitoba.

© 1968 American Institute of Physics

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This Content Appeared In

Volume 21, Number 9

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