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Linguistics in science (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
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[-] mkwt@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago

Barns have physical dimensions of area, even though they are used to express probability distributions. So you can imagine "the broad side of a barn" as being so many square meters, but then scale it way way down to a particle physics equivalent, and you get the barn. Which apparently roughly represents "the broad side of a uranium nucleus".

[-] 2nd_Fermenter@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

I actually like the barn as a unit of measure.

I am forever haunted by the decision decades ago to refer to two of the quarks as Top and Bottom. Maybe it was cute at the time. It did not age well.

this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2024
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