English in science

[Genady]

As noted in another current thread, hundred years ago science textbooks used to talk about "destruction of heat". This language is not used in science today. I think, there might be many other examples of interesting evolution of scientific English, not involving changes in underlying physics.

The first came to my mind, "mass". Not long ago (but after 1905) it often was used with a qualifier, e.g., "rest mass", "relativistic mass". Today, it is just "mass" meaning "rest mass", in all (almost?) textbooks, presentations, papers.

Other interesting examples?

[exchemist]

58 minutes ago, Genady said:

As noted in another current thread, hundred years ago science textbooks used to talk about "destruction of heat". This language is not used in science today. I think, there might be many other examples of interesting evolution of scientific English, not involving changes in underlying physics.

The first came to my mind, "mass". Not long ago (but after 1905) it often was used with a qualifier, e.g., "rest mass", "relativistic mass". Today, it is just "mass" meaning "rest mass", in all (almost?) textbooks, presentations, papers.

Other interesting examples?

Not interesting ones perhaps, but chemistry is always undergoing revisions to terminology. What used to be carbonium ions when I was at university are now carbocations. The numbering of groups in the Periodic Table has changed. Lots of little things like that. But it was ever thus. I remember my grandfather teasing me, when I was studying for A Level, that I did not even know what muriate of potash was. It turned out to be  potassium chloride, KCl,  - muriatic acid being an Edwardian-era name for hydrochloric acid (my Grandfather had been born in 1901!).  

But as for trying to build significance into a particular word translated from early c.19th French, that strikes me as a real fool's errand.   

[sethoflagos]

1 hour ago, Genady said:

Other interesting examples?

The indo-european root of 'black' meant 'burn, gleam, flash etc', and also gave us the French word for 'white'

Edited February 15, 2023 by sethoflagos

[Genady]

1 hour ago, exchemist said:

I remember my grandfather teasing me, when I was studying for A Level, that I did not even know what muriate of potash was. It turned out to be  potassium chloride, KCl,  - muriatic acid being an Edwardian-era name for hydrochloric acid

This sounds like common vs scientific names of species in biology.

[Phi for All]

2 hours ago, Genady said:

Other interesting examples?

The Bohr model of the atom originally used "orbits" to describe the path electrons take. That's changed to "orbitals" with "shells" and "subshells" as we learned more and needed to distinguish between observed behaviors.

[joigus]

2 hours ago, Genady said:

Other interesting examples?

Another interesting shift in nuances is:

Gauge invariance -> Gauge symmetry -> Gauge ambiguity

I've even read and heard pronounced the expression 'gauge junk.'  

That's probably because, while we think we understand very well what heat is about, in the case of gauge ambiguities it's not so clear.

So you have to write down the equations to comply with an apparently beautiful and simple symmetry principle, and once you start your calculations you have to throw away half of it because it's junk? What's that about?

[Genady]

Good examples above. Here is another: metal in chemistry vs metal in astrophysics (any element but hydrogen or helium).

[joigus]

3 minutes ago, Genady said:

Good examples above. Here is another: metal in chemistry vs metal in astrophysics (any element but hydrogen or helium).

LOL. Another way of saying 'heavy.'

There is also a curious effect that's more horizontal --discipline to discipline-- than temporal. I think your example of 'metal' has a horizontal component to it.

Eg: Physicists use 'reversible' with a different meaning than chemists do. For a physicist, 'reversible' means the process is infinitely slow, and every intermediate state is one of equilibrium, while chemists may use it in that sense when discussing thermodynamics, but definitely often use it meaning that a chemical reaction is completely displaced in one direction. Biologists too.

[Genady]

How about geometry? From a study of shapes and figures to a study of coordinate invariance.

[CharonY]

This is probably not quite what OP was thinking about, but in fast-moving sciences, often new terms are coined and changed in a relative fast manner. For example, the term "genomics" was coined in the 1980s and was used to describe the complete set of genes (genome) and later for the other biomolecules in a cell (e.g. proteome for proteins, transcriptome for RNA and so on). Then at some point folks like the term so much, that it started to be used in somewhat different contexts. For example, rather than using "proteome" to refer to a complete analysis of all proteins, it was eventually also used if one simply looked at more than one or two proteins.

Another fancy term that has been circulating since the mid 2000s is "synthetic biology", which in many areas is now replacing the older term of molecular cloning (or molecular genetic) techniques. An interesting aspect of it, is that this rapid divergence of terminology actually seems to create a divide in literature. I found that many students only use the newer terms and thereby overlook older papers.

[Phi for All]

25 minutes ago, joigus said:

LOL. Another way of saying 'heavy.'

This reminded me of the term "massive", which is very different in science than in regular English.

[Genady]

Symmetry: from a simple geometrical meaning to invariance under transformation.

[TheVat]

Bioinformatics is one whose meaning changed quite a bit.  In the early 70s it was the study of information processes in biotic systems.  Now it's a broad interdisciplinary field that combines biology, chemistry, physics, computer sci, IT, and math/stats to analyze and interpret biological, medical, and health data.  

IOW, it started out mainly about sequencing then broadened vastly.

[John Cuthber]

2 hours ago, Genady said:

How about geometry? From a study of shapes and figures to a study of coordinate invariance.

Actually from the measurement of the earth- a vital thing to do it the Nile kept washing away your markers.

[joigus]

3 hours ago, Phi for All said:

This reminded me of the term "massive", which is very different in science than in regular English.

Oh, and the list goes on and on. There is no 'quality time' in scientific English, but in regular English, there is.

 

[swansont]

5 minutes ago, joigus said:

There is no 'quality time' in scientific English

It’s called UTC

 

 

[CharonY]

1 hour ago, TheVat said:

Bioinformatics is one whose meaning changed quite a bit.  In the early 70s it was the study of information processes in biotic systems.  Now it's a broad interdisciplinary field that combines biology, chemistry, physics, computer sci, IT, and math/stats to analyze and interpret biological, medical, and health data.  

IOW, it started out mainly about sequencing then broadened vastly.

I think it is actually fragmenting again. What for a while was considered bioinformatics have in part been reclaimed by biostatisticians, a part has peeled off to computational biology and yet another part falls under the broader umbrella of data sciences. And I think especially the latter is bound to specialize again (it seems to come and go in waves).

[Genady]

6 hours ago, John Cuthber said:

Actually from the measurement of the earth- a vital thing to do it the Nile kept washing away your markers.

That does not count. They did not speak English then. 😉

[Genady]

6 hours ago, joigus said:

Oh, and the list goes on and on. There is no 'quality time' in scientific English, but in regular English, there is.

 

Yes, there are too many differences between English in science and out. Such comparisons should not be considered here. "Horizontal" differences are almost the same.

How about wave-particle duality in QM? Historically, it was talked about quite a lot, but I don't think it is mentioned anymore. Not as an important concept anyway.

[sethoflagos]

Does anyone under fifty understand 'punchcards', 'analogue computer', 'relay ladder logic',  'assembly language', 'ward leonard drive', 'pentode', 'cathode ray tube', even 'carburretor' and 'distributor'? All the stuff I must have spent years trying to get my head around when I was younger.

 

Do you need someone who does? 😉

[Genady]

5 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

Does anyone under fifty understand 'punchcards', 'analogue computer', 'relay ladder logic',  'assembly language', 'ward leonard drive', 'pentode', 'cathode ray tube', even 'carburretor' and 'distributor'? All the stuff I must have spent years trying to get my head around when I was younger.

 

Do you need someone who does? 😉

Oh, yes. Another long list. But this is technology, not science.

[joigus]

7 hours ago, Genady said:

How about wave-particle duality in QM? Historically, it was talked about quite a lot, but I don't think it is mentioned anymore. Not as an important concept anyway.

In the case of wave-particle duality, there doesn't seem to be the words to subtitute them. Speaking from personal experience, it feels like people have given up on trying to understand this double nature in terms of old concepts, and prefer to say things like 'quantum behaviour,' 'quanta,' and the like.

Another interesting case that can perhaps be subsumed here is when people realise that something that seemed very special is but a particular case of a more general phenomenon. In field theory, eg, the word 'charge' was reserved for 'electric charge,' while people who work in field theory today tend to call anything that's conserved 'Noether charge' or just 'charge.' For these people, energy, momentum or angular momentum components, etc, are just 'charges.' It tends to make life easier when the context is understood by everybody in the field. 

I'm not a language determinist, BTW. I think it's more of a two-way connection. Sometimes language affect our thinking, other times it's our thinking that ends up being affected by the way we think.

[studiot]

The beauty of English is that you can build complex ideas and variations on them by creating phrases or a series of phrases, using modifying words.

For example

Field

Number field

Algebraic number field

and so on

[Genady]

6 minutes ago, studiot said:

The beauty of English is that you can build complex ideas and variations on them by creating phrases or a series of phrases, using modifying words.

For example

Field

Number field

Algebraic number field

and so on

The other three languages I know have the same feature. (But this is OT, perhaps.)

[exchemist]

On 2/15/2023 at 4:05 PM, Phi for All said:

The Bohr model of the atom originally used "orbits" to describe the path electrons take. That's changed to "orbitals" with "shells" and "subshells" as we learned more and needed to distinguish between observed behaviors.

Actually I think that change served a deliberate purpose. Given that the model of the atom changed radically from the Rutherford-Bohr model to the modern (Schrödinger?) model, the word "orbit" became objectively wrong, so orbital was chosen instead, to signify the new model.

P.S. Another name change in chemistry that bamboozled me briefly is from ESR, which I remember from university,  to EPR, which is virtually the same thing. I suppose there is in principle a change, in that EPR implies one thinks in terms of the more general J, rather than S.    

Edited February 16, 2023 by exchemist