Resonating with physics: physics students’ stories about existential and affective relations to science in and beyond formal learning spaces
Bibliographic record
Abstract
In this paper, we seek to contribute to understandings about how physics allows reflection on what it means to be human. Drawing on life-history interviews with three university physics students, we explore the affective and existential aspects of engagement in physics, with attention to experiences from informal and formal science spaces. With Hartmut Rosa’s conceptualization of resonance, we show how (intertwined and parallel) relations to physics – as a superstructure, science materials, and people via science – can provide meaningful connections to the world and oneself. The students, all of whom had undertaken adult education, had enrolled in university physics for reasons of awe, joy, and, also, serenity in hardship. Though reiterating common understandings of physics as an ‘objective’ and ‘challenging’ subject, the interviewees described their engagement in physics as salutogenic. Physics provided existential meaning and well-being; e.g. its epistemic character of boundaries and beauty offered stability in precarious life situations. Our study shows how science can be important for (i) reshaping one’s worldview and self-understanding, (ii) fostering meaningful relationships, and (iii) enhancing well-being. We conclude that to cultivate engagement in science, education should prioritize creating meaningful, respectful learning spaces that support students in forming a diverse range of resonant science-related relationships.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.006 | 0.016 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.012 | 0.021 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.009 | 0.014 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.012 |
| Research integrity | 0.005 | 0.013 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".