Physics Envy

The Tensor writes about physics envy in linguistics:

Let me be clear. I find language and linguistics fascinating, and I do not regret my choice of field. But an underground lab with "the lowest level of radiation of any point in the Solar System"? Goddamn, that's cool. We mere social social scientists never get to announce anything that so totally reeks of Big Science. Think about it. We'll never get to say something like:

• When fully pressurized, gentlemen, this hyperverbal chamber will contain the highest density of lexical items ever observed.


• After parsing this quintuply-nested onion sentence, Broca's area in the subject's brain will achieve a temperature nine times hotter than the surface of the sun.


• The submicrosecond collapse of this precise mixture of passive and antipassive verb forms produces mutual annihilation and a burst of hard gamma rays.