Some nice physics in the popular press

I was delighted to see a couple of physics items in the popular press.  Last week the New York Times had this opinion piece by physicists Adam Frank and Marcelo Gleiser, "A crisis at the edge of physics."  There isn't much new here for DTLR readers, as last year we've covered similar ground in our discussion of Jim Baggott's book, Farewell to Reality.  Helen Quinn's term "scientific metaphysics" (see my previous post) might be a good one to use to describe what Baggott less charitably calls "fairy tale physics".  Nonetheless I take a dim view of efforts to de-emphasize the importance of empirical testing.  Such efforts smack of wishful thinking, in my view.

Then Forbes had a piece by physicist Chad Orzel defending his choice to work in atomic and molecular physics.  Titled "Particle and astro aren't the only kinds of physics", it is absolutely delightful, except for the swipe at biomedical researchers near the end!  Of course, condensed matter physics is the largest sub-field of physics, but it does seem true that particle physics, astrophysics, and cosmology are the branches of physics that get the most traction in the popular media.  Physics needs more evangelists like Orzel to call attention to the many and varied other subfields of physics.