I just was. See a few posts upthread. 
Crotalus, my methodolgy goes like this:
“Somebody set the brontos up the bomb. Yeah, that works.”
Should I be sorry I brought this up in the first place?
No. No, I should not.
If you’re upset about the Brontosaurus, you really don’t want to hear what happened to the Trachodon.
Wholesale trachodonotomy?
Okay, this took a lot of digging. I’d say he said it. Here is a cached copy of an article purported to be from the Atlantic Monthly. (Look for “Atomic War or Peace”.) Apparently, there were two AM articles, one in 1945 and the other in 1947. The latter is available from AM (which is a different article), but the former (which is the article in question) isn’t. However, Time Magazine, writing exerpts, had some of the exact wording from the cached article, a week after it was published in 1945. Hope that clears things up. 
Yep.
Let’s just say that by the time the paleontologists got finished, there wasn’t a Trachodon to be found anywhere.
My uncle has a PhD in atomic physics. He was originally studying nuclear physics. My mom asked him why he switched, and he said, “Because atoms are bigger.”
There’s no point to this post. I’m just trying to sound smart by association. I know jack about physics, but my uncle is a physicist! You need some atoms smashed? My uncle can get you a deal!
Ok, so what is it about electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength in the range of 10 to 0.01 nanometers that would logically lead one to refer to it as “X-rays”?
And who, if not high nabobs, decided the outcome of the element naming controversy?
When it comes to naming things, science is just as much a popularity contest as any other field. More so, perhaps, since new ideas and discoveries that need names of their own are continually being added.
Nucular, it’s nucular ::Homer Simpson::
No, really, I think we need an explicit term to define bombs made from matter as distinct from all those other things people usually make bombs out of.
All of that is deciding on new names, which must be arbitrary simply because the things have not been named before. Non-arbitrary names are impossible.
I’m pointing out the misuse of existing names, which have a perfectly defined meaning except in certain contexts. ‘Nuclear’ means ‘pertaining to the nucleus of an atom’. ‘Atomic’ means ‘pertaining to atoms as entire entities’. ‘Molecular’ means ‘pertaining to molecules’, which means a ‘molecular bomb’ would be a pressure vessel filled to bursting. (Yes, ‘bomb’ is used in that sense, as in ‘bomb calorimeter’. Although bomb calorimeters aren’t designed to burst.) Combustion is out of the question because ‘combustion’ means ‘oxidation’ which necessarily involves atoms leaving and creating new molecules.
You don’t think it might have been better to launch your campaign against this misuse a bit earlier? 50 years or so ought to do it.
This is weak. It began as a throwaway remark in GQ and you know it. Thinking I think I have any chance of changing this makes no sense at all.
Actually, I haven’t even read the thread in question. I’m just joining in the fun here, like a lemming.
A throwaway remark, yet you keep digging.
What do you think, Derleth, of the direction of current flow in a circuit being opposite the direction of flow of electrons? Is this a centuries-old mistake which must now be rectified by wholesale restructuring of language? Or can we accept the conventions we’ve lived with for so long now, acknowledging them for what they are but not feeling a need to confusingly modify them?
Was she ever really asking for people to change their usage? I thought she was just saying pretty much that the term is a misnomer. Which it is. And that that is something people should know. Which they should.
Fuck the brontosauruses. I want to know which motherfucker killed off my stegosauruses, so I can get some hard, pipe-swinging badasses and go pay them a visit.
I actually had a problem with that, Indistinguishable, because I was self taught in electronics and physics at roughly the same time. (Several years earlier than school would provide.)
Darn that Ben Franklin for guessing wrong!
Derleth was probably the kid in high school who said “Can you please pass the sodium chloride?”
Or who feigned confusion when you referred to the “accelerator” in a car. Because you might be referring to the gas pedal, the brakes, or the steering wheel.