A friend of mine is completing his masters in physics and asked me to proofread his thesis, which he had to write in English. Apparently, physics just isn't done in German. Who knew? Anyway, I am having a blast rolling these fantastic phrases around in my mouth, and wanted to share a few succulent morsels with you.
Some of these things sound like intriguing yet painful medical complaints:
- Inverse beta decay (too much Italian ice cream)
- Electrons and positrons from decaying muons (ow)
- Influence of oscillations inside the supernova (I think I get this every time I eat sauerkraut)
- Spectral pinching (that might also be something you hear from the backseat: "Mo-om, tell her to stop pinching my specter!" "Children, if you don't stop the spectral pinching this instant you will have to get out of the car and walk!")
- Flavor-dependent neutrino spectra (Can I get that in strawberry?)
- Simulations of different groups: Livermore
But my all-time favorite, which I'd like to run around naked in the streets in the rain shouting at the top of my lungs...total neutrino luminosity.
Total neutrino luminosity. Total neutrino luminosity. TOTAL. NEUTRINO. LUMINOSITY!
Doesn't it just make you want to start shedding layers?? Total neutrino luminosity is the feeling of the sea at my back, the wind in my face, cruising down a slight incline on a freshly-paved path in my rollerblades, those moments of bliss that catch you unawares and knock you out of your world for just a moment--- TOTAL NEUTRINO LUMINOSITY!!!!!!!!!
Good night, and I wish you all a healthy dose of TNL!
4 comments:
Ah, and you think that's it? Oh, you won't believe the terms they find in Physics. What, for example, do you think of the "Wino" and the "sneutron"? Of "Flavor Changing Neutral Current"? of "Eigenstates of Momentum"? of "strangeness" and the "truth" and "beauty" quarks (although, to be honest, these are also sometimes called, more prosaicly, "top" and "bottom")
The thing is, physics has, long ago, run out of normal roman letters, capital roman letters, lower case greek letters, capital greek letters and so on. Same thing for the names. So, they borrow the word "quarks" from Joyce, and when they have to duplicate the number (and therefore number of names) of "elementary" particles, they call them "smuons" and "photinos".
And who said physics wasn't artistic?
Cheers, and have fun with the rest of thesis.
Hedwig
that's lovely, and i love it that you think it's lovely!
I want total neutrino luminosity!!!! Because lately, I have been exuding some mean energy.
Oh, I just loved your post!
TNL is when you are sitting at the beachfront and you have just watched the sun sink into the sea, you start counting the first stars and they get more and more until they are uncountable... Then your friend sees the first shooting star and each of you gets to wish something... and all of a sudden you look at the waves and you see the seasparkle in it...
that's TNL, right?
(sorry, how do you call this thing in English that you write into your blog? entry? post?)
Post a Comment