These are my favorite science memes because they make me feel a little what boomers feel. I saw an article about a particle I've never heard of called "Axions" and I have had it up to here with all these newfangled particles.

[–] drailin@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Axions are super cool, they solve two longstanding questions in particle physics (they are a potential dark matter candidate and solve the Strong Charge-Parity problem) and are named after a brand of soap because they clean up the standard model of physics, I shit you not. I am about to finish my PhD in particle physics and spend a lot of time studying the types of detectors being used to look for dark matter (axions, wimps, etc), as they are adjacent to the detectors I use in my field of neutrino physics.

[–] AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

named after a brand of soap because they clean up the standard model of physics Ah, scientists, so silly. One of my favourite silly names in my field is naming the gene that causes fruit flies to be extra susceptible to alcohol "Cheap date"

It's either that or the Sonic Hedgehog protein (and the inhibitor "Robotnikinin")

[–] drailin@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

I am proud of silly naming traditions. I named one experiment I worked on godXilla and the other I work on is named CRAB (hoping I don't doxx myself letting that out lol)