Echoes of Gravitational Waves

Abstract

The myth-histories scientists tell tend to be collages of heroes pasted together to evoke an irrefutable scientific foundation of progress. Students consuming these narratives are not introduced to a realistic portrayal of scientific practice; they are fed an idealized form of science based on tropes that are effectively impossible to follow. How does this affect our students? We assume it gives them positive, ideal role models, but is this so? Studies show that students’ motivation is not homogeneous. Some may feel disenfranchised and unmotivated by myth-historical reconstructions of people from circumstances wildly different from their own. Chapter 4 examines one of the clearest examples of this idealization, myth-historical narratives constructed in communicating the discovery of gravitational waves in 2015–16. These narratives cast Albert Einstein as a clear and unambiguous scientific hero. They also engage in an ex post facto transformation of physicist Joseph Weber from scientific pariah to hero.