Wm. Scott Smith <[email protected]> wrote: When we say "Cold Fusion" they are almost justified in assuming that it > should work the same way as hot fusion. >
No one picked the name "cold fusion." It just came along. F&P did not like it. Researchers have often gather to pick another name, such as LENR. See p. iv here: http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/NagelDJproceeding.pdf People who assume that cold fusion should work the same way as hot fusion know nothing about the subject. Changing the name will not reduce their ignorance. It does not matter what you call something in any case. Many words are technically inaccurate, such as meteorology. Weather is not caused by meteors, but we still call it that. You can make the case that nearly all words in all languages are derived from something that lags one meaning behind the present meaning, so they are never accurate. For example, we call a collection of files on a computer a "folder." This is derived from a manila folder used in a physical file drawer. When my daughter at age 12 first saw one she said, "ah, so that's what the icon thing is." The file drawer folder, in turn, is derived from the word "fold" which is what you do to the stiff manila paper; you fold it in the middle. This is from the Old English falden, which may mean plait, or twine. Words lag and never quite accurate because we usually use old words to describe new things. On rare occasions we make up a brand-new word such as "telephone," or "byte." Other newly coined words usually derive indirectly from some older word, sometimes something whimsical. The nuclear science word "barn" derives from a barn, meaning storage shed, from the saying, "you couldn't hit the side of a barn." Nearly all words, going back thousands of years, are derived from other, even older words. Often the original meaning is lost, or obscure. Sometimes the derivation is apparent when you stop and think about it, with a word such as "understand" which implies shoring up something, or putting a base under it. This is not much help for people learning English because other languages have different metaphors for the same idea. In Japanese "understand" is "wakaru" which derives from cutting or breaking down something. It means analyzing it by dissection as it were, somewhat the opposite of shoring it up. Knowing word origins is fun but it seldom helps us understand what the words actually mean. That can only be learned by context. The meanings of all words constantly evolve and change, although often at a pace too slow to observe in a lifetime. Language along with all products of biology must evolve. It is never precisely the same in two different individual members of a species, or in one member at two points in time. It is, quite literally, as unique as our fingerprints or our DNA, or the body shape of gall wasps. Alfred Kinsey recognized and categorized hundreds of thousands of variations in this, and saw no two gall wasps alike, because there are no two alike, and never will be. Nature recognizes no average, mean, or ideal body type -- such concepts have no meaning in biology. The recognition of this fact, and the ramifications of it, were central to Kinsey's later work in human sexuality, and the importance of this concept is second only to Darwin's theories, in my opinion. - Jed
