The article I’ve identified as representative of discourse in physics can be found here.
By analyzing the article from several different angles one can learn a lot about rhetoric in physics. The first thing that stands out to any reader is the implied audience. The language is enriched technical jargon with which only a physicist would be familiar. For example, found in the second sentence of the abstract we hear, “The signal sweeps upwards in frequency from 35 to 250 Hz with a peak gravitational-wave strain…” I would bet 99% of people haven’t a clue what gravitational-wave strain is. The author of this article is unclear, which is typical of physics publications. A large section is devoted to listing over 100 contributors with no explicit mention of who is literally writing the article. The author is simply a personified company: LIGO. The ethos is entirely lacking, with no mention of who LIGO is, why they’re credible, what qualifications any of the contributors have, etc. Presumably, when physics publications are made it is merely assumed that the source is credible. Similarly, the article makes no explicit mention of its purpose within a larger context. The introduction contains some history as to what motivated the experiment, but we’re just supposed to know why this matters. Considering the implied audience, perhaps the purpose is clearer to the trained physicist. Any laymen who may have stumbled upon the article must perceive it to be a mere presentation of data — just pointless presentation of information. The content is only purposeful, knowledge-enhancing information for the intended audience who can make sense of it.
As eluded to before, the persuasive appeal is singular. The only “argument,” if you will, is logical. The physics community does not want to hear what makes searching for gravitational waves a moral endeavor. They want the facts. Which brings me to another rhetorical construction, which is the format. The publication begins with some historical context of the experiment. “In 1916, the year after the final formulation of the field equations of general relativity, Albert Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves.” Here we find the only statement indicative of some purpose within a greater context. The structure of the article is methodical, and breaks down the discovery into a handful of chapters or sections: Introduction, Observation, Detectors, etc. There is absolutely no ambiguity in the language, either. It is clear, concise, and complete. It amounts to an almost unreadable, robotic prose. The only attempt at any color in the discussion is the chunk of history in the introduction. The rest is like reading an owners manual for an automobile. The message is clear: inform the physics community. Anything more is inefficient — anything less is antiscientific. If you want watered down physics go watch the Discovery Channel. Discourse within the physics community is airtight logic, with not a single word of fluff: “Our observations provide unique access to the properties of space-time in the strong-field, high-velocity regime and confirm predictions of general relativity for the nonlinear dynamics of highly disturbed black holes.” The language is dense with technical jargon, and is merciless to the non-physicist.
Charles Golden 