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What names in physics or science in general would you change?

repoman

repoman

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I was thinking about changing anti-matter, because it is matter. Maybe mirror-matter.


any other names you would want to change?
 
Years ago, I worked on an underground nuclear test (UGT) at the Nevada Test Site. We were testing the effects of gamma rays on some missile hardware. For fun, we referred to the gamma rays as "zoomies". It kinda grew on me. I vote for changing gamma rays to "zoomies"
 
repoman said:
I was thinking about changing anti-matter
Click to expand...
Darn right. It should be "positon", not "positron".

There's an "r" in "electricity". There's an "r" in "neutral". There is no "r" in "positive".
 
The "Big Bang". It started from what might have been a singularity... as small as small can be... and it didn't "BANG" at all.
It should be called the "Early Expansion".

a "Vacuum" needs to be renamed. WTF with the double U? (and why the hell is the W called a double-U, when every other language out there calls it a double-V).

"Black Hole". It's not a hole. A hole is a marked absence of matter... a Black Hole is a whole lot of matter!

"Driveway"... is should be "Drive Away"... because that is what you use it for... but no, we park in the driveway... and for that matter, we drive on the freaking Parkway!
 
thebeave said:
Years ago, I worked on an underground nuclear test (UGT) at the Nevada Test Site. We were testing the effects of gamma rays on some missile hardware. For fun, we referred to the gamma rays as "zoomies". It kinda grew on me. I vote for changing gamma rays to "zoomies"
Click to expand...
We used to call all the radiation coming off of the missiles 'zoomies.'
Someone would see us cleaning in upper level, as close as you could get to the warheads while still inside the people tank.
"Aren't you afraid of radiation?"
"No." We'd tap our dosimeters. "I've got my zoomie catcher to protect me."

Speaking of zoomies, why are they alpha, beta, gamma and Neutron? Three are designations and one's what the shit actually is. Why can't they all be greek letters? Or some other system?

Alpha beta gamma and delta.
Or zoomies bad, worse, oshit and ocrap.
 
Malintent said:
The "Big Bang". It started from what might have been a singularity... as small as small can be... and it didn't "BANG" at all.
It should be called the "Early Expansion".

a "Vacuum" needs to be renamed. WTF with the double U? (and why the hell is the W called a double-U, when every other language out there calls it a double-V).

"Black Hole". It's not a hole. A hole is a marked absence of matter... a Black Hole is a whole lot of matter!

"Driveway"... is should be "Drive Away"... because that is what you use it for... but no, we park in the driveway... and for that matter, we drive on the freaking Parkway!
Click to expand...

Fine, fine. I'll get off your lawn. No need to yell.
 
I'd change Isaac Newton's name to Calculon, I'd put a question mark at the end of Heisenberg's name, and I'd keep Planck's name the same, but insist it be written in a tiny font.
 
repoman said:
I was thinking about changing anti-matter, because it is matter. Maybe mirror-matter.
Click to expand...
Mirror matter is taken. ;)

Negatron works for electrons... and Optimus Prime is an easier way of saying number two. Who does number 2 work for?
 
Huh, that is interesting about mirror matter. The wiki article was fairly dense, hard to understand parity violations.
 
The label 'imaginary numbers' is nothing but confusing.

I remember doing the maths for AC power while at uni, and thinking 'how the fuck are the voltage and current imaginary?' The only way to deal was to ignore the label entirely.

Understanding i as merely a rotational operation on a vector made things much easier, and was the only way I could understand complex numbers intuitively in the content of electrical devices.
 
Keith&Co. said:
thebeave said:
Years ago, I worked on an underground nuclear test (UGT) at the Nevada Test Site. We were testing the effects of gamma rays on some missile hardware. For fun, we referred to the gamma rays as "zoomies". It kinda grew on me. I vote for changing gamma rays to "zoomies"
Click to expand...
We used to call all the radiation coming off of the missiles 'zoomies.'
Someone would see us cleaning in upper level, as close as you could get to the warheads while still inside the people tank.
"Aren't you afraid of radiation?"
"No." We'd tap our dosimeters. "I've got my zoomie catcher to protect me."

Speaking of zoomies, why are they alpha, beta, gamma and Neutron? Three are designations and one's what the shit actually is. Why can't they all be greek letters? Or some other system?

Alpha beta gamma and delta.
Or zoomies bad, worse, oshit and ocrap.
Click to expand...

Interesting. Maybe "zoomies" is a common name for radiation in Navy circles (we were testing a D5 Equipment Section).

At NTS, there are a bunch of structures (buildings, bridges, etc) that were built back in the 1950's for the sole purpose of blowing up with nuclear bombs to see how they survive a blast (back before above ground testing was prohibited, of course). You can drive around and see them. Like ghost towns almost. There is/was yellow tape surrounding the areas, designating it as a "no-go" zone. We used to joke that the "zoomies" stopped at the yellow tape, so there was no harm from the radiation. So, just keep in mind that zoomie catchers come in all shapes and sizes.

I would definitely not include alpha or beta radiation as "zoomies" though. They're more like "pokies".
 
What about "decay" pertaining to radioactivity. Given what we know now, wouldn't a better term be possible?
 
Keith&Co. said:
thebeave said:
Years ago, I worked on an underground nuclear test (UGT) at the Nevada Test Site. We were testing the effects of gamma rays on some missile hardware. For fun, we referred to the gamma rays as "zoomies". It kinda grew on me. I vote for changing gamma rays to "zoomies"
Click to expand...
We used to call all the radiation coming off of the missiles 'zoomies.'
Someone would see us cleaning in upper level, as close as you could get to the warheads while still inside the people tank.
"Aren't you afraid of radiation?"
"No." We'd tap our dosimeters. "I've got my zoomie catcher to protect me."

Speaking of zoomies, why are they alpha, beta, gamma and Neutron? Three are designations and one's what the shit actually is. Why can't they all be greek letters? Or some other system?

Alpha beta gamma and delta.
Or zoomies bad, worse, oshit and ocrap.
Click to expand...

Alpha, beta and gamma were detected before there was a good theory as to their nature; neutron radiation was theorised before it was detected.

Once the nature of alpha, beta and gamma radiation was understood, the people who needed to discuss them were used to the names, and felt that their behaviour in the contexts they cared about was sufficiently different to their more everyday manifestations as to make renaming them more trouble than it was worth.

'High speed helium 4 nuclei', 'very high speed electrons', and 'awesomely high energy photons' are accurate but unwieldy, and people who wrangle electrons - chemists and electricians - don't have any use for beta particles, which are too energetic for their purposes.
 
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