The role of trust in physics

What is it about?

Theoretical physicists use experimental knowledge in their work, but they need to do it 'indirectly', given nowadays it's practically impossible for theoreticians to produce vanguard empirical data in physics. Physics therefore depends on this division of labour, but how then does experimental knowledge and data reach theoretical physicists? The paper examines the role that sociological trust plays in these processes of knowledge transfer and argues that in fact three main strategies are used: interpersonal trust ("someone I know and trust can verify or explain experimental knowledge"); trust-by-proxy ("someone I don't personally know can verify it, and there is a known chain of people that links us, or an institution that backs up that trust"); or blind faith ("it can be trusted because in principle it can be trusted"). The paper uses a micro-sociological, interview led approach to illustrate these trust based mechanisms in real physics settings, which create 'chains of trust' from experimental sites to pure theoretical practice. The paper also considers the delegation of epistemic authority for each of these mechanisms of trust, and defines a scale of 'social distance' using this tripartite trust model.

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Why is it important?

Although trust is a topic of interest to social studies of science, the three types of trust discussed here are often mixed up. The paper seeds to add clarity to these discussions and afford a better vocabulary for social scientists interested in processes of knowledge transfer and communication. Additionally, the paper seeks to give a more complete answer to the so-called 'problem of disunity' in sociology of science, that is, the question of how 'science' is able to hold together, given that sociology has shown how scientific practice is both diverse and heterogeneous when examined up close.