What is your favourite word in math/science jargon?

[kaleidoscope]

Share curious or funny words from math/science jargon that you like.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Share curious or funny words from math/science jargon that you like.

Planck length is pretty good.

 

[FlexGunship]

Share curious or funny words from math/science jargon that you like.

Praeseodymium.

But only when Carl Sagan says it: (puh-RAAAYYZZZ-e-o-die-me-um).

 

[epenguin]

Syzygy

 

[jtbell]

The mho (unit of conductivity).

 

[Gokul43201]

I like the mho too.

And the tilted washboard potential. [PLAIN]http://prac.us.edu.pl/~zft/images/stories/article_images/washboard.png

Also, the Sine-Gordon Equation: $\phi_{xx}-\phi_{tt}=sin \phi$ (a pun on Klein-Gordon: $\phi_{xx}-\phi_{tt}=\mu^2 \phi$)

[URL]http://homepages.tversu.ru/~s000154/collision/4f_s.gif[/URL]

I have mixed feelings about the Alpher-Bethe-Gamow cosmogenesis paper. It's typical of Gamow to get Bethe's name in the paper just for the sake of the pun, but I can understand that it might piss off Ralph Alpher.

I like the sound of Russian names like Bogoliubov and Lyapunov!

In high school, I developed an affinity for the Sanskrit word thathaasthu (translated commonly as 'so be it', but in this specific context it is closer to 'behold!') when I saw it appended to this "proof" of a famous theorem:

[URL]http://dorasexplorations.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/thumbnailcary6t0j.jpg[/URL]

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Planck length is pretty good.

That comes up short for me.

The mho (unit of conductivity).

If we could call the curl of a function, a curly, we would only need a Larry to be complete.

I always liked the sound of "Eigenfunction".

One of my favorite words was "canonical". The first time a professor walked in and started talking about canonical equations, for a few moments I thought he meant "conical", but had been drinking.

 

[humanino]

Supersymmetrical particle names : for bosons, we add "ino" in the end, so the superpartner of the photon is the photino for instance. But for fermions, we add "s" in the beginning, so the superpartner of the electron is the selectron for instance.

If we find a superpartner to the positron, we will have to call it the spositron. No kidding.

 

[FlexGunship]

Supersymmetrical particle names : for bosons, we add "ino" in the end, so the superpartner of the photon is the photino for instance

I change my to "humanino" the super-symmetrical parter for the bosonic human.

 

[jtbell]

Supersymmetrical particle names : for bosons, we add "ino" in the end, so the superpartner of the photon is the photino for instance.

And the superpartner of the W is the Wino.

 

[waht]

The homotopy theory, induced maps, covering spaces, the Seifert-Van Kampen's theorem.

 

[Jack21222]

Glueball (the bound state of gluons without quarks)

 

[Gokul43201]

Just remembered another one I like: jellium.

 

[brewnog]

Flange!

 

[Chi Meson]

The Poynting vector is always a laugh ("Don't all vectors poynt?")

 

[jtbell]

If we could call the curl of a function, a curly, we would only need a Larry to be complete.

In electrodynamics, we do have curl E.

 

[Andy Resnick]

Canthotaxis (contact line pinning) is a good one.

 

[Gokul43201]

Another one I like is the Airy function. Or, as they call it in France, l'Airy fonction. <hides from the susy bose-man>

So I guess we do have mho, curl E, and l'Airy fonction.

 

[Gokul43201]

I like to use the word 'defenestration' for the act of formatting the hard drive on a PC and installing Linux.

 

[Chi Meson]

I like to use the word 'defenestration' for the act of formatting the hard drive on a PC and installing Linux.

I never heard that before. Well-suited considering the actual meaning of the word.

 

[jtbell]

Going beyond single words...

I was a graduate student when the b (bottom) quark was discovered. Of course, most physicists expected that there would be a t (top) quark to accompany it, and sure enough it was eventually found. But in the meantime some theorists speculated about how to have a b quark without a t quark. I remember seeing a preprint titled "Topless Bottom Models in E6."

 

[jtbell]

So I guess we do have mho, curl E, and l'Airy fonction.

I don't remember seeing the Stooges doing any fish-slapping, but it's certainly in keeping with their work, so have one on me, in appreciation!

 

[Gokul43201]

I don't remember seeing the Stooges doing any fish-slapping, but it's certainly in keeping with their work...

Yeah, you'd think that would be their kind of thing, but apparently they weren't very good with fish.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

In electrodynamics, we do have curl E.

Another one I like is the Airy function. Or, as they call it in France, l'Airy fonction. <hides from the susy bose-man>

So I guess we do have mho, curl E, and l'Airy fonction.

Bravo!

Curl E should have jumped off the page for me.

 

[collinsmark]

"Spaghettification." As in "getting spaghettified." Meaning getting torn asunder by tidal forces such as when falling into a relatively small black hole.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghettification"