I think it would be neat to compile a list of words and phrases like “terminal velocity” and “quantum leap” that have specific scientific meanings, but have entered the popular lexicon just because they sound cool. Of course, the colloquial usage may or may not be faithful to its meaning in a scientific context, such as with quantum leap.
What other terms can you think of?
Critical Mass - A biking event.
The Matrix. “A table of numbers”, something that surrounds and binds smaller objects… but also a movie.
Event horizon, singularity.
I woulda said Quantum Leap, since that’s the one that bugs me, but it’s already in the OP
**Chaos (theory)
Fractal
Asymptotic
Laser precision**
You guys are wierd, I never hear anyone say anything like that :dubious:
At least not out of the original context…
It’s not a terribly popular word, but I always liked “Euclidean”
I hear “axiom” from time to time used by non math/physics people…often times used incorrectly.
light year
Homonym, but googol.
What about ‘random’?
“Oh my God, did you see what she was wearing it was totally random”.
When a teenage girl first explained this to me she said “You know, it’s kind of like random numbers or whatever”.
Toxic
radioactive
permeable
probability
Paradigm shift
*Beyond the blue event horizon
The point of no return
Goodbye to things that bore me
Oblivion’s waiting for me
I see a new event horizon
I’m stretched like spaghetti
Beyond the blue event horizon
Singularity!
Beyond the blue event horizon
Full of night and not day
Goodbye to things that bore me
Oblivion’s waiting for me
I see a new event horizon
The black hole and I are one
Beyond the blue event horizon
In the collapsed sun
Beyond the blue event horizon
In the collapsed sun *
“going ballistic” – almost never used correctly.
Not popular, but I like saying van der waals
The old favourites - “quantum”, “energy”, “vibrations”.
Actually I just typed “Quantum energy vibrations” into Google… fuck, that’s depressing.
theory
variable
cosmic
exponential
infinite
dynamics
Exponential(ly). Most of the time when it is used the statement is nonsensical. For example, “The sun is exponentially larger than the Earth!” No. The difference between any two given quantities is a constant. To say that it is exponential doesn’t mean anything.
Sometimes the statement is merely wrong. For example, “Children grow at an exponential rate!” No. This could be true, because it is a statement about the relation between two values (size and time), but the growth rate of children is not actually proportional to how large they are. In fact, their growth rate slows down as they grow larger.
An example of a (potentially) true statement would be “My debt is growing exponentially.” If you don’t pay the interest, this is indeed the case: if you double your debt, you double the rate at which it is growing. This is true for your savings account as well, however. If it doesn’t feel like it, that’s because you think “exponentially” means “lots”. It doesn’t mean lots. Things that grow exponentially can grow quite slowly (but give them enough time and they’ll speed up).
Leading edge, no, they don’t know what a leading edge actually is.
According to the OED, use of the word “axiom” in a non-mathematical (and non-scientific) context can be dated back to 1485, and the first reference they find to mathematical axioms is in 1785. I suspect most of the “non math/physics people” you hear using the word are not using it incorrectly at all.
“Paradigm shift” is not a scientific term. It comes from the history and philosophy of science, specifically, it was coined in T.S. Kuhn’s very influential book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, where it is used to describe certain aspects of the historical development of the sciences. The expression is much misused, though, quite often (but by no means only) by scientists.
Does it mean something different, to a scientist, from what it appears to mean, then? It looks like ordinary English to me, not really scientific jargon at all, although I don’t doubt that scientists use it. Of course, the most common everyday use of it is metaphorical.