Nomenclature is important for many groups and disciplines: persons, objects, structures, works of art, geographical entities and even scientific fields. A particular example is the name “East Sea” designated for the body of water between Korea and Japan, where the “Sea of Japan” is more commonly known among foreigners. Director Hahn of CENS opines that “East Sea of Korea” or “Sea of Korea” is a more persuasive term when lobbying international powers, because it is less ambiguous. The same can be said for the “West Sea” between Korea and China, which is designated “Yellow Sea” because of the sand and silt carried over by the Gobi Desert sand storms.
Physics is a discipline which deals with the tiniest to the largest objects in the Universe. The smallest units of matter are quarks, comprising the protons and neutrons of atomic nuclei, as well as leptons which include electrons. 6 types of quarks and 6 types of leptons are known. The name “quark” was suggested by Murray Gell-Mann, inspired from the sentence “Three quarks for Muster Mark!” in James Joyce’s novel “Finnegans Wake”. The term was appropriate to advertise the postulate that each proton or neutron was composed of 3 fundamental particles. This is an exemplary case where works of literature can provide a creative spark for advancement of scientific knowledge and terminology.
The origin of the Universe is currently suggested to be the Big Bang. The “bang” is an onomatopoeia for an explosion, and it is curious that the scientific term for the beginning of the Universe was not the “Grand Explosion”. The more colloquial term was mockingly brought up by an astronomer Fred Hoyle in 1949 at a BBC broadcast, who was a proponent of the Steady-state model and was unconvinced that the Universe stated with a “big bang”. Ironically, the de facto theory of the origin of the Universe is now the Big Bang, and the popularity of the term has not waned.
The first heavy ion accelerator facility in Korea under construction is named RAON (Rare isotope Accelerator complex for ON-line experiments). Although the name was decided by public nomination and has a phonetical semblance to “joy” or ”delight” in Korean, Hahn and other researchers feel that the intended significance is contextually misleading for this large-scale scientific project. He wishes a more appropriate name for the facility be used, once the construction phase is completed. As written in a poem:
Before I called him (her) by name,
he (she) was a mere flesh.
When I called his (her) name,
he (she) came to me and became a flower.
(excerpt of Flower, by Chunsu Kim)
Link to the original column (in Korean): https://www.seoul.co.kr/news/newsView.php?id=20210907029018
Center for Exotic Nuclear Studies