# Does this sound odd in a scientific article? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 13, 2004, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-sound-odd-in-a-scientific-article/244931 "2004-05-13T11:03:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-sound-odd-in-a-scientific-article/244931/1 "2004-05-13T11:03:17Z")
The following is the first sentence of a journal article from 1980. Am I the only one who finds this hilarious? > [@](#): > > The purpose of this paper is to reveal the awesome power and capability of the Ultraviolet Spectrometer and Polarimeter. ---
**Author:** ![Kymodoce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8797f3/32.png) [@Kymodoce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kymodoce)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-sound-odd-in-a-scientific-article/244931/2 "2004-05-13T11:13:45Z")
Was this article written by a certain Tom Swift, Jnr? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![screech-owl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@screech-owl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/screech-owl)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-sound-odd-in-a-scientific-article/244931/3 "2004-05-13T11:26:32Z")
Okay, color me unusually dense and/or caffeine-deficient\*\*, but I just don’t get either the OP or **Kymodoce** ’s answer??? \*\*soon to be remedied! ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-sound-odd-in-a-scientific-article/244931/4 "2004-05-13T11:29:22Z")
I find it hard to imagine describing a UV Spectrometer or a Polarimeter (!!) as having “awesome power”. Scientist #1: Hey, listen to me revvin’ up this Cary 14! Scientist #2: Wow, that’s bithin’! Scientist #1: And I haven;t even got to the _vacuum_ UV yet! Wait’ll you hear my polarimeter! ---
**Author:** ![Small\_Clanger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@Small\_Clanger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Small_Clanger)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-sound-odd-in-a-scientific-article/244931/5 "2004-05-13T11:37:35Z")
Wouldn’t they be passive devices? Next the awesome power of the thermometer. ---
**Author:** ![Kymodoce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8797f3/32.png) [@Kymodoce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kymodoce)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-sound-odd-in-a-scientific-article/244931/6 "2004-05-13T12:17:42Z")
> [@screech-owl](#): > > Okay, color me unusually dense and/or caffeine-deficient\*\*, but I just don’t get either the OP or **Kymodoce** ’s answer??? > \*\*soon to be remedied! Ah well, people not getting me is not exactly unusual… 🙂 The eponymous Tom Swift was a character in a series of sci-fi books by Victor Appleton II, written in the '50’s I believe. They had titles like “Tom Swift and the Repelatron Skyway”, and “TS and the Polar-Ray Dynasphere”. To a non-physicist ( I hope I picked the right discipline) like me, the OP’s article sounded rather like one of those made-up titles. Believe me, Tom Swifts inventions really DID have awesome power… ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-sound-odd-in-a-scientific-article/244931/7 "2004-05-13T12:45:50Z")
> [@](#): > > Ah well, people not getting me is not exactly unusual… > > The eponymous Tom Swift was a character in a series of sci-fi books by Victor Appleton II, written in the '50’s I believe. They had titles like “Tom Swift and the Repelatron Skyway”, and “TS and the Polar-Ray Dynasphere”. To a non-physicist ( I hope I picked the right discipline) like me, the OP’s article sounded rather like one of those made-up titles. Believe me, Tom Swifts inventions really DID have awesome power… Nitpick: The original Tom Swift was the hero of a series of kiddie “scientific adventures (“Edisonades”) 'way back in the 1920s or thereabouts. All novels appeared under the “house name” of Victor Appleton”, regardless of who actually wrote them. My hometown library had a bunch of these, with titles like “Tom Swift and his Electric Motorbike”. In the late 1950s (I thinkl) they revived the line, only now it was Tom Swift, _jr._, and the stories were ostensibly written by Victor Appleton _III_. And instead of lame inventions like Electric Motorbikes, Tom had things like nuclear subs. But he never had an Awesome UV Spectrophomtometer and Polarimeter. ---
**Author:** ![curly\_chick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7ba0ec/32.png) [@curly\_chick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curly_chick)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-sound-odd-in-a-scientific-article/244931/8 "2004-05-13T12:47:25Z")
An Ultraviolet Spectrometer? Rather than an ultraviolet spectrophotometer?? Well, if the bloody thing had no light source in it, I might just have to be a little bit awed. ---
**Author:** ![Kymodoce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8797f3/32.png) [@Kymodoce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kymodoce)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-sound-odd-in-a-scientific-article/244931/9 "2004-05-13T13:12:38Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Nitpick: The original Tom Swift was the hero of a series of kiddie “scientific adventures (“Edisonades”) 'way back in the 1920s or thereabouts. All novels appeared under the “house name” of Victor Appleton”, regardless of who actually wrote them. My hometown library had a bunch of these, with titles like “Tom Swift and his Electric Motorbike”. > > In the late 1950s (I thinkl) they revived the line, only now it was Tom Swift, _jr._, and the stories were ostensibly written by Victor Appleton _III_. And instead of lame inventions like Electric Motorbikes, Tom had things like nuclear subs. > > But he never had an Awesome UV Spectrophomtometer and Polarimeter. Arrrrgh, out Tom-Swifted! Still, I bet you never tried to make a Megascope Space Prober out of sticky-back plastic and a detergent bottle, did ya? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-sound-odd-in-a-scientific-article/244931/10 "2004-05-13T13:26:04Z")
> [@curly chick](#): > > An Ultraviolet Spectrometer? > Rather than an ultraviolet spectrophotometer?? > > Well, if the bloody thing had no light source in it, I might just have to be a little bit awed. Actually it doesn’t - it’s an astronomical instrument. The article is from _Solar Physics_, and the UVSP (UV Spectrometer and Polarimeter) is one of the instruments on the Solar Maximum satellite. (Which has the dubious discinction of being the first satellite to be [repaird in space](http://www.spacenet.on.ca/stories/robotics/solarmax/index.htm).) What’s the difference between a spectrometer and a spectrophotometer? I haven’t seen the latter term used in astronomy. ---
**Author:** ![Jenaroph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e8c25b/32.png) [@Jenaroph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jenaroph)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-sound-odd-in-a-scientific-article/244931/11 "2004-05-13T15:02:20Z")
> [@](#): > > The purpose of this paper is to reveal the awesome power and capability of the Ultraviolet Spectrometer and Polarimeter. “Ooh, I _LOVE_ powerful sciencey stuff!” Tom ejaculated. ---
**Author:** ![Jenaroph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e8c25b/32.png) [@Jenaroph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jenaroph)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-sound-odd-in-a-scientific-article/244931/12 "2004-05-13T15:07:31Z")
Hrmm…did I get the format wrong? :smack: “How does an Ultraviolet Spectrometer work without a light source?” Tom said darkly. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-sound-odd-in-a-scientific-article/244931/13 "2004-05-13T15:49:14Z")
For be it from me to derail a good hijack, but I want to be the first to say to the OP, “Cite?” ---
**Author:** ![Podkayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Podkayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Podkayne)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-sound-odd-in-a-scientific-article/244931/14 "2004-05-13T16:01:04Z")
Well, _I_ don’t think they should be so proud of this technological terror they have constructed. Its awesomeness is insignificant next to the power of the Force. ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-sound-odd-in-a-scientific-article/244931/15 "2004-05-13T17:15:07Z")
When the Taser electric immobilization weapon first came on the market, it was reported that it was named for an old Tom Swift book. **T** om **S** wift and his **E** lectric **R** ifle TASER, with the A dropped in to make it pronouncable. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-sound-odd-in-a-scientific-article/244931/16 "2004-05-13T18:02:20Z")
> [@Terminus Est](#): > > For be it from me to derail a good hijack, but I want to be the first to say to the OP, “Cite?” [_Solar Physics_, vol. 65, Feb. 1980, p. 73-90](http://ads.nao.ac.jp/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=1980SoPh...65...73W) You can read it for yourself, I think. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-sound-odd-in-a-scientific-article/244931/17 "2004-05-13T18:14:34Z")
The last portion of the first paragraph is also a gem: > [@](#): > > It is being written before the launch…so that after launch when we are swamped by exciting new discoveries we have this behind us, and in case it all falls in the sea. ---
**Author:** ![bughunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/aeb1de/32.png) [@bughunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bughunter)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-sound-odd-in-a-scientific-article/244931/18 "2004-05-13T19:26:18Z")
> [@scr4](#): > > The following is the first sentence of a journal article from 1980. Am I the only one who finds this hilarious? I build things like spectrometers and polarimeters for a living, and I’ve written dozens, reviewed hundreds, and listened to thousands of SPIE technical papers, and language like this is uncommon, but not rare. It’s typical of university students, or industry whiz-kids fresh out of university. There are a lot of young turks think they can break the fuddy-duddy square mold of engineers, but they generally abandon that when they finally realize the awesome power of cultural inertia. Oh and as to the question of why _spectrometer_ and not _spectrophotometer_, a spectrometer has only a spectral absolute accuracy requirement, while a spectrophotometer has both a spectrometric and photometric absolute accuracy specification. In other words, the former just measures the color, while the latter measures color _and_ intensity. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-sound-odd-in-a-scientific-article/244931/19 "2004-05-13T19:31:37Z")
Just wait until I publish my article about my “Fucking Awesome Strain of _E. coli_”. I did the research with my “Incredibly Damn Nifty Pipetters”. ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2004, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-sound-odd-in-a-scientific-article/244931/20 "2004-05-13T21:44:33Z")
As odd as that is in a scientific paper, it would probably be even odder elsewhere. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-sound-odd-in-a-scientific-article/244931.md?page=2)