• Question: What is the longest scientific word you can think of? And if so, what does it mean?

    Asked by sophiewest to Adam, Catherine, Karen, Leila, Nazim on 16 Mar 2012. This question was also asked by igloo23.
    • Photo: Karen Masters

      Karen Masters answered on 13 Mar 2012:

      I was in a talk last week given by a Scottish astronomer, and he kept saying “turbulence”. That’s an excellent word with a Scottish accent – although I suppose not that long. It means chaotic motion in a cloud of gas – it’s what in our atmosphere makes airplane rides bumpy sometimes. He was talking about it with reference to how planets might form in debris discs around baby stars.

    • Photo: Adam Stevens

      Adam Stevens answered on 13 Mar 2012:

      Today I was reading a lot about serpentinisation, which is pretty long. It just means a particular type of rock reacts with water to make another type of rock, and give off methane (which is why I’m interested!).

    • Photo: Catherine Rix

      Catherine Rix answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      this is a chemical that I have been working with “Poly[dimethylsiloxane-co-[3-(2-(2-hydroxyethoxy)ethoxy)propyl]methylsiloxane]” we call it PDMSHEPMS for short. Chemical names can be really long!

    • Photo: Leila Battison

      Leila Battison answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      Preopercularsubmandibular. It is the name of a bone in fish fossils near the back of the head!

      Or there’s this one: pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. Which is a lung disease caused by breathing in very fine dust from volcanoes!

    • Photo: Nazim Bharmal

      Nazim Bharmal answered on 19 Mar 2012:

      Something I’m working on at the moment involves regularization (with a ‘z’ or a ‘s’? I’m never sure). That is a mathematical trick that can fill in details we didn’t even measure: it is a bit like magic sometimes!

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