Popular Science Versus Lab Lit: Differently Depicting Scientific Apparatus

Abstract

For the lay public, science is often associated with the laboratory and its equipment. This is why representation of scientific apparatus in texts targeting non-professionals is worth a close look. An analysis of a variety of popular science texts (books, articles, blogs) and several lab lit novels suggests that there is no one shared way that popular texts use to depict scientific equipment. In fact, theoretical approaches to apparatus representation and treatment suggest several possibilities from techniques that avoid linguistic descriptions to approaches that equate the instruments with the scientists who use them. Popular science and lab lit employ a combination of these methods and in some instances extend their boundaries. Thus lat lit novels capitalize on emotional attachments between researchers and their equipment, producing descriptions of apparatus that are complex and that function as a means of characterization for the scientists. Popular science, on the other hand, chooses more conventional treatments of apparatus, providing generalized mentions for most pieces of equipment and singling out only a few extraordinary instruments for detailed attention. While both genres rely heavily on language-dependent treatment of apparatus (as opposed to visual representation), they do it in markedly different ways. Popular science texts are driven by the need to introduce a discovery, thus focusing on a product of laboratory activity and apparatus use, while lab lit novels are centered on the activities that lead to a discovery, creating texts more concerned with the process of apparatus use. If lab lit highlights the daily work of ordinary equipment, popular science focuses on the grand discoveries achieved with the help of unusual instruments.