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Linguistics in science
(lemmy.blahaj.zone)
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this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2024
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The probability of interaction between a nuclei and a particle is called a "barn" - because its a bit like shooting the broad side of a barn.
Its a standard Sci unit, too, so real actual papers will use "megabarn" as a real unit of measure.
Its subunit is called a "shed", because physicists don't get out enough.
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".
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.