In the top 132 physics departments (minus three) at the time of the last NRC ratings we plot here the ratios of subatomic to superatomic faculty in groups of 26 departments corresponding to the five quintiles of NRC ranking in our sample. We have also considered the ratios of Astronomers and Astrophysicists to other physics faculty.



  The total astronomy to physics ratio includes the astronomers in separate Astronomy departments. This figure falls from 0.36 in the universities with the top physics departments to 0.10 in the lowest quintile of the current sample. This is the sum of the lower two curves which show the astronomy to physics ratio in separate departments and within primary physics departments. One can see that, in universities with the higher ranked physics departments, most astronomy is in a separate department while in universities with lower ranked physics departments most astronomy is within the primary physics department. The ratio of astronomers to other physicists within the primary physics or physics and astronomy department does not fall steeply (or monotonically) with rank quintiles.

  As we have seen elsewhere, the ratio of subatomic to superatomic physics does fall steeply as one goes from the most highly respected departments to the lower ranked departments.   (The ratios here are cumulative; i.e., the subatomic ratio is the total number of subatomic faculty in each group of 26 departments relative to the total number of superatomic faculty in that group. They are the ratio of the averages and not the average of the ratios)

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