# Worst named scientific concepts **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 29, 2025, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-named-scientific-concepts/1016316 "2025-03-29T19:00:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2025, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-named-scientific-concepts/1016316/1 "2025-03-29T19:00:05Z")
I enjoy astronomy, and it’s interesting how many terms are poorly-named. Often it’s due to being coined by a detractor of a model, or the history of how the phenomenon was first observed. …I’m not dissing astronomers, science is a messy, complex process. **Planetary nebulae:** Nothing to do with planets. **Stellar populations:** Population I stars are the third generation. Population III stars are the first generation. **Dark energy:** A lot of people get confused that it must have something to do with not interacting with EM radiation, because that’s what the “dark” in “dark matter” means. **Big bang:** Not an explosion, and is a continuing process, not an instance of time (usually…I know now it sometimes gets used interchangeably to refer to the t=0 moment) Any I’ve missed? Examples from other areas of science? ---
**Author:** ![dougrb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/76d3ee/32.png) [@dougrb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougrb)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2025, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-named-scientific-concepts/1016316/2 "2025-03-29T19:04:12Z")
The God particle. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2025, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-named-scientific-concepts/1016316/3 "2025-03-29T19:06:59Z")
Oh jeez yeah. The news coverage of that was a daily facepalm. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2025, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-named-scientific-concepts/1016316/4 "2025-03-29T19:08:19Z")
The [Hairy Ball Theorem.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hairy_ball_theorem) I mean, it is aptly-named, but surely there were other choices. ---
**Author:** ![dasmoocher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@dasmoocher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dasmoocher)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2025, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-named-scientific-concepts/1016316/5 "2025-03-29T19:15:45Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > The [Hairy Ball Theorem.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hairy_ball_theorem) What happens when it’s spanked by an infinite number of monkeys? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2025, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-named-scientific-concepts/1016316/6 "2025-03-29T19:42:33Z")
There are a bunch stemming from the whole “opposites attract” thing. Like, a cathode is the negatively-charged terminal of a battery and an anion is the positively-charged terminal, but a cation is positively charged and an anion is negatively charged (because a cation is attracted to the cathode, and an anion to the anode). And the magnetic pole up in Canada is the Earth’s south pole, and the one in Antarctica is the north pole (because the north pole of a magnet is the one that points towards Canada). ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2025, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-named-scientific-concepts/1016316/7 "2025-03-29T19:45:48Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > Big bang To be fair, the term was coined by someone who didn’t believe in it at all. Fred Hoyle was a steady state guy and he used the term in a derisive way. But it stuck. > [@Mijin](#): > > **Stellar populations:** Population I stars are the third generation. Population III stars are the first generation. This one always bugged me too but, no one asked me. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2025, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-named-scientific-concepts/1016316/8 "2025-03-29T19:54:47Z")
The waves in spacetime generated by such events as black hole collisions and predicted by General Relativity are called “gravitational waves”. Why not just call them “gravity waves”? Because that term [was already taken](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_wave), for phenomena that are a much less apt use of the term. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2025, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-named-scientific-concepts/1016316/9 "2025-03-29T19:56:32Z")
Black Holes are no such thing. They are not holes leading to anything. Just poor science fiction writing. And still it goes on. A deep gravity well with no escape. No hole to anything except bad movies. ---
**Author:** ![dasmoocher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@dasmoocher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dasmoocher)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2025, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-named-scientific-concepts/1016316/10 "2025-03-29T20:04:19Z")
Depending on the definition, “junk” DNA. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2025, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-named-scientific-concepts/1016316/11 "2025-03-29T20:04:36Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And the magnetic pole up in Canada is the Earth’s south pole, and the one in Antarctica is the north pole (because the north pole of a magnet is the one that points towards Canada). Well, really it’s the poles on a magnet that are misnamed. The earth’s magnetic pole that is relatively close to the geographic north pole is unambiguously the north magnetic pole. The “north” and “south” designations on a magnet are arbitrary, and “north” was so named because that was the end of a freely rotating bar magnet that would always point toward the earth’s north magnetic pole. Given how like poles on magnets repel and opposite ones attract, that end of a bar magnet is, indeed, its south pole. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2025, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-named-scientific-concepts/1016316/12 "2025-03-29T20:09:52Z")
> [@Dallas\_Jones](#): > > Black Holes are no such thing. I don’t think it is a bad name. Sure, it is not scientifically accurate but “flexion in the fabric of spacetime for a gravitationally collapsed object beyond the Schwarzschild radius” might be a bit much. It looks kinda like a hole. It acts kinda like a hole. As a catchy name I think it works ok. ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2025, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-named-scientific-concepts/1016316/13 "2025-03-29T20:10:15Z")
I was going to say black holes, too, albeit for perhaps slightly different reasons. The word “hole” conjures up the idea of nothingness, empty space, for most laypeople. But in fact black holes are pretty much the opposite of nothingness; they’re incredibly dense. A few years ago after NASA published some images of a black hole, a Republican friend shared a meme that showed the black hole image inside Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s head. Ironically, if you know what a black hole actually is, that meme implied the opposite of what it was presumably intended to imply. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2025, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-named-scientific-concepts/1016316/14 "2025-03-29T20:16:09Z")
An elliptic curve is not an ellipse. There is an somewhat obscure relationship between elliptic curves and ellipses, but the name has probably caused a lot of confusion, since the standard graph of an elliptic curve looks nothing like the standard graph of an ellipse. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2025, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-named-scientific-concepts/1016316/15 "2025-03-29T20:58:47Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#): > > I was going to say black holes, too, albeit for perhaps slightly different reasons. The word “hole” conjures up the idea of nothingness, empty space, for most laypeople. But in fact black holes are pretty much the opposite of nothingness; they’re incredibly dense. Actually, although black holes are very massive, they’re probably not dense at all, and in fact may be the least dense objects in the universe. In the absence of ongoing matter accretion, they’re simply a singularity surrounded by an enormously powerful gravitational field. FWIW, to me the term “black hole” seems appropriate. It’s black, and it’s a “hole” in the sense that anything that comes near it disappears, and in a real sense can be said to have irrevocably been removed from the universe, all its identity permanently gone. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2025, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-named-scientific-concepts/1016316/16 "2025-03-29T21:02:51Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > …in a real sense can be said to have irrevocably been removed from the universe, all its identity permanently gone. I think this bit is wrong. Black holes are not a cosmic eraser. Information is still preserved (e.g. in Hawking radiation). ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2025, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-named-scientific-concepts/1016316/17 "2025-03-29T21:02:53Z")
As I understand it one issue with the term black hole is that it’s a Russian obscenity. And Russian physicists were kind of embarrassed talking about the Giant Space #%$$@%$%. > [@Chronos](#): > > There are a bunch stemming from the whole “opposites attract” thing. Like, a cathode is the negatively-charged terminal of a battery and an anion is the positively-charged terminal, but a cation is positively charged and an anion is negatively charged (because a cation is attracted to the cathode, and an anion to the anode). And related, the fact that they guessed wrong about “negative” and “positive” when it came to electrical current, leading to electrons - the things that are actually moving in a current - having a _negative_ charge and making electrical jargon less comprehensible. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2025, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-named-scientific-concepts/1016316/18 "2025-03-29T21:14:02Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > > [@wolfpup](#): > > > > …in a real sense can be said to have irrevocably been removed from the universe, all its identity permanently gone. > > I think this bit is wrong. Black holes are not a cosmic eraser. Information is still preserved (e.g. in Hawking radiation). The idea that information is somehow preserved is, at best, extremely contentious. The traditional view is that nothing is preserved except whatever mass and charge the object contributed to the black hole. AIUI Hawking radiation is simply the interaction with the event horizon of quantum fluctuations in the vacuum surrounding it – it conveys no information except that the intensity is inversely proportional to the hole’s mass. Fundamentally and by definition, it cannot possibly convey any information about anything inside the black hole. > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > As I understand it one issue with the term black hole is that it’s a Russian obscenity. And Russian physicists were kind of embarrassed talking about the Giant Space #%$$@%$%. I think this is a misunderstanding. The Russian term for what we call a black hole is “frozen star”. Which, given what happens to time dilation at the event horizon, seems quite accurate. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2025, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-named-scientific-concepts/1016316/19 "2025-03-29T21:16:14Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And the magnetic pole up in Canada is the Earth’s south pole, and the one in Antarctica is the north pole (because the north pole of a magnet is the one that points towards Canada). > [@wolfpup](#): > > Well, really it’s the poles on a magnet that are misnamed. The earth’s magnetic pole that is relatively close to the geographic north pole is unambiguously the north magnetic pole. The “north” and “south” designations on a magnet are arbitrary, and “north” was so named because that was the end of a freely rotating bar magnet that would always point toward the earth’s north magnetic pole. Given how like poles on magnets repel and opposite ones attract, that end of a bar magnet is, indeed, its south pole. My high school physics teacher was always careful to refer to the ends of our lab tools as the “north-seeking” and “south-seeking” poles. Made it slightly less confusing. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2025, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-named-scientific-concepts/1016316/20 "2025-03-29T21:16:15Z")
There are lots of these sorts of bad names in chemistry too. And a few in physics. Ultimately, as folks are first figuring [whatever] new stuff out, they don’t know enough to name it well. The new thing is adjacent to current knowledge, but it also has about half of its local context out there in the as-yet unknown unknowns. Which leads to names that later prove dumb, once the rest of the nearby context gets filled in. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-named-scientific-concepts/1016316.md?page=2)