Friday, May 03, 2013

Commonly Mispronounced Name Or Phrase In Physics

Do you know of any commonly mispronounced name or phrase in physics? I know of a few. Many of these are often names in another language, such as French. So many in the English-speaking world, especially here in the US, often tend to pronounce these words the way they are spelled, rather than the way they should be pronounce in their native tongue. Even the popular name of "Einstein" is commonly mispronounced when compared to what it should be in German.

Here is my list that I can think of off the top of my head:

1. Brillouin
2. Auger
3. Double Chooz.

I may come back later and add more to this list.

Zz.

14 comments:

Michael Lerner said...

I like "the Louisville theorem"

Unknown said...

"Runge" integrators. Bloch is almost always mispronounced as "Block". Most of solid state physics German names...

Andy said...

My personal favorite is Poisson

Adam said...

De Broglie, which prononciation is unnatural even in french.

monica said...

Iron

Heumpje said...

brehm strahlung and rest stralen band are always good for a laugh.
Heike Kamerlingh Onnes' name is probably only pronounced correctly by the dutch

Unknown said...

My favorite is the Schwarz-child metric.

Unknown said...

a classic is also the effect named after Lamb and Shift

Eujin said...

Tycho Brahe

Steveo said...

This isn't necessarily a physics name, but its a pet peeve of mine when people mispronounce kilometer. This may be not be as big of a problem in the US as it is in Canada.

ZapperZ said...

How is "kilometer" pronounced in Canada?

Might be the same thing as many Americans mispronouncing "nuclear" as "nukiller". Or maybe they are doing it on purpose.

Zz.

Anonymous said...

There is no such physicist as Erwin Schrowdinger, only Schroedinger. Unfortunately, a lot of English speakers can't be bothered to learn how to make the sound

Unknown said...

My favorite is Huyghens (something like "Oihruns" in Dutch)

Richard C said...

The one you have to be really careful of when teaching. Is "Kuntz Tube".