Over the last few years I have translated into English a fair amount of scientific papers for a Mexican scientist. Throughout this time, I noticed that by far the most common style requirement was asking the paper to be written in either American or British English. I have no problem with American since in Mexico … Read more
What is a technical term (perhaps from statistics) for the extent (or proportion) that a specified condition applies to some given population? For example: There is a communicable cancer currently ravaging the Tasmanian Devil species. I would use this term to say “the [extent/proportion in the population] of the cancer”. Software test suites exercise some … Read more
I am writing a scientific text in the area of computer science. Often, I need to refer to a certain data structure named String which refers to a sequence of characters. In most programming languages, this needs to be capitalized in order to be correct. However, when I refer to that data structure in regular … Read more
When I’m writing about atoms, often what I’m writing about applies to (monatomic) ions too. It’s slightly annoying to add “(or ions)” after every mention of atoms, where a word that refers to both atoms and ions would be ideal. Does such a word exist? There is “element”, but often this is used to refer … Read more
I’m looking for a word that indicates something has been sampled (i.e, scientifically analyzed, measured, collected, etc.) multiple times within a span of time. Specifically, I want it to reflect “having many samples given the amount of time“. Words that don’t quite work: “Well studied” and “repeatedly sampled” don’t stress this latter criterion of temporal … Read more
Earlier today someone told me about a trick of watering plants when you are traveling. Basically, next to the plant there is a bowl of water with a tube inserted into it. At the end of the tube is the plant. He said that this process is natural, (water flowing against gravity) an requires no … Read more
Not to be confused with a person who can morph themselves into someone else or a creature by will, but someone who has an ability to body swap – without necessarily having control over it. I am writing a short fiction story and I am looking for acceptable sounding names/words to describe this action and … Read more
In the summary of my physics paper, for a scientific journal, in the start of a new paragraph in the discussion, what is more correct to write? We have showed that the system obeys this and that rules, … or: We have shown that … or simply: We showed that … Answer In the abstract … Read more
Sometimes a purely static image will appear to be moving because of some design feature. That’s not what I’m asking about. I’m asking about an illusion that arises only through real movement involving patterned objects. This movement can be supplied by the movement of one object with respect to another; or the movement can be … Read more
What is a more professional term for the phrase ‘back-of-the-envelope’ calculation, used by scientists and such as a word for a very basic, general first calculation? Answer Zeroth-order approximation. In science, engineering, and other quantitative disciplines, orders of approximation refer to formal or informal terms for how precise an approximation is, and to indicate progressively … Read more
