If two foreigners whose mother tongues are completely different and who do not share a common language are forced by circumstance to cooperate and achieve a coordinated goal, how could they manage to do this? Galison (1997) has presented this linguis- tic puzzle as analogy to the problem of communication between the micro-cultures of physics, along with a highly in uential answer in STS, which will be considered here in detail and juxtaposed to the Collins & Evans approach, as it has also been analysed in depth by previous SEE-in uenced authors.
As one of the most in uential authors to tackle the problem of communication in science directly, for Galison experimenters and theoreticians are not two sorts of physicist differentiated by efforts concentrated on different problems, but can be better understood as two different cultures embedded in the larger culture of physics. Galison thus recognises that in this sense, physics is a disuni ed science. Based on historical work on experimental traditions in early 20th century physics Galison found that along with these two traditional cultures, one could de ne a third culture which was of equal importance to the other two— technology— thereby increasing the complications for the problem of communication. Galison showed that the development of experimental physics was not synchronised with either theoretical or technological developments, and therefore that the emergence of ‘revolutions’, ‘paradigm shi s’, etc. in one of the cultures cannot be mapped one-to-one to those in the others, further supporting the view of a fragmented culture of physics; theory, experiment and technology ought to be treated as autonomous micro-cultural entities, and conceptual mismatch between them
is as real as the linguistic incommensurability between two groups that speak different languages.
Galison’s historical accounts include experimenters, theoreticians and technolo- gists found to be working on common projects and goals which required input from all three micro-cultures. In order to explain how communication does happen, as it is seen to happen in such collaborations, Galison put forth the idea of ‘trading zones’, lin- guistic spaces — possibly but not necessarily associated with physical spaces — where hybrid proto-languages develop that take elements from both parent languages (‘pid- gins’ and ‘creoles’, in increasing order of sophistication). e hybridisation begins with simple exchanges of words to which both micro-cultures give common meaning, af- ter which the trading zone language can gain in complexity so that if the trading zone is sustained for long enough it is possible for a new autonomous language to develop. Taking his cue from linguistic studies describing such cultural clashes, Galison saw the coordination of the three micro-cultures of twentieth century particle physics and their developments as cases of the emergence of trading zones.
Galison (1996, p. 153) has exploited the metaphor in other historical studies to highlight the role of trading zones. In his analysis of Monte Carlo simulations in nu- clear physics, Galison for example states that “in the heat of the moment, a kind of pidgin language emerged in which procedures were abstracted from their broader sig- ni cation. Everyone came to learn how to create and assess pseudorandom numbers. […] Everyone learned the techniques of variance reduction. […] By the 1960’s what had been a pidgin had become a full-blown creole: the language of a self-supporting sub-culture with enough structure and interest to support a research life without be- ing an annex of another discipline, without needing translation into a ‘mother tongue.” A few lines later Galison points out that “of course not everyone shared all the skills of this new ‘trading zone.’ Some focused on the game-theoretical aspect; others, more on variance reduction or convergence problems.” Galison clearly showed that Monte Carlo developed into a technique that grew out of the localised context in which it was developed and offers evidence that it indeed became an autonomous area of expertise, as did all of computational physics. But as far as the intermediate hybridisation pro- cess is concerned, he only affirms that the motley crew of professionals involved in the development of Monte Carlo “could and did nd common cause” without any eviden- tial support. In fact, Galison points that in these interactions, “individuals […] could
alternate between problem domains without difficulties.” is is not far from Kuhn’s observation that scientists can and indeed do switch between paradigms when looking at different problem domains, a picture which Galison explicitly wants to reject with the creation of trading zones as ‘intermediate’ linguistic zones between the indepen- dent micro-cultures.
Galison’s model is one of scienti c communication between autonomous micro- cultures in general, and so one can examine whether interaction between scienti c micro- cultures are generally based on the establishment of trading zones. Going back to the linguistic metaphor, if this were the case it would mean that when two foreigners inter- act, the only means they have of promoting collaboration or communication is to estab- lish pidgins, creoles and trading zones. However, although we know that creolisation happens in certain contexts, it is not the only way in which communication happens between individuals from different cultures in general. One can for example use the services of a translator, or what is perhaps more common, one of the parties involved might learn the language of the other person’s culture. Indeed, one need not go that far if one allows that ‘interactions’ may not necessarily be limited to close partnerships or personal contact. One could, for example, simply read the English translation of a Spanish speaker’s biography to gain insight into that person’s life even if one does not understand Spanish, and thereby gain some sort of insight into that person’s culture; although this is hardly interaction, it does imply transmission of knowledge, which is de nitely one dimension of scienti c interaction.