I was looking at a list of particles, and I noticed that many of them ended in -on. Proton, electron, neutron, lepton, etc. Is there a historical (or linguistic) reason behind this naming structure?
$\begingroup$
$\endgroup$
3
-
$\begingroup$ I suppose you could add in elements here, with all the -iums. $\endgroup$– HDE 226868 ♦Dec 12, 2014 at 2:04
-
1$\begingroup$ See here for the letter of George Johnstone Stoney $\endgroup$– Mauro ALLEGRANZADec 12, 2014 at 12:25
-
1$\begingroup$ See also here for Greek etymology $\endgroup$– Mauro ALLEGRANZADec 12, 2014 at 12:29
Add a comment
|
1 Answer
$\begingroup$
$\endgroup$
4
This is a question about etymology. It all started with the genuine Greek words anion “going up” and kation “going down”, both neuter participles of the verb “to go” with different preverbs: an(a)- and kat(a)-. Then we got “ion” on its own as a term encompassing both, and then, by analogy, “proton”, “electron”, “neutron”, and ultimately also “positron” (based on a spurious reanalysis of electr-on as elect-ron, and creation of a pseudo-suffix “ron”.)
-
1$\begingroup$ I think the essence of this answer is the following. Particles were named after Greek words, and this was done in a gender-neutral fashion, rendering -on the only possible suffix. $\endgroup$– Danu ♦Dec 13, 2014 at 13:44
-
1$\begingroup$ Not all neuter nouns/adjectives in Greek end in -on. $\endgroup$– fdbDec 13, 2014 at 14:34
-
1$\begingroup$ ...but it's the canonical example, IIRC from Greek in school (it was a while ago...) $\endgroup$– Danu ♦Dec 13, 2014 at 15:15
-