Meredith Fore
Three physicists share their experiences learning and communicating physics in a foreign language: English. Because of English’s hegemony in science and the world, aspiring scientists in non-English-speaking countries must learn English in school to pursue a career in science. In some cases, science classes are even taught entirely in English.
Since 2010, the African School of Fundamental Physics and Applications has provided education to hundreds of students. The ASP is a three-week summer program for university-level students from across the continent of Africa. Participants learn about nuclear and particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology, accelerator physics, high-performance computing, quantum information and more. For some students, it’s the first time they hear about some of these topics.
In science, making data open means making available, free of charge, the observations or other information collected in a scientific study for the purpose of allowing other researchers to examine it for themselves, either to verify it or to conduct new analyses. There are barriers to making scientific data open, but doing so has already contributed to scientific progress.