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Headbomb: Your linguistic argument doesn't hold up. The term "muonium" was coined following the example of "positronium" which is also an onium despite the particle that gives it its name being called the "positron" not the "positr". In-fact the -onium suffix was retroactively derived from "positonium" and "muonium" in the first place; they set the precedent for the convention by creating the initial pattern. Additionally, muonium is already described as an onium in the article already (including the efn), or at least that's how it reads to me, so as without "an" the text appears to contradict itself. -
Scyrme (
talk)
00:49, 27 November 2021 (UTC)reply
To be clear, my reading of the efn is that it clarifies that not all onia follow the pattern implied by the (misleading) opening line; ie. that muonium, although an onium, is not a muon-antimuon onium. -
Scyrme (
talk)
01:05, 27 November 2021 (UTC)reply
As I've already explained, I don't agree that this article does clearly explain that. I don't see where
true muonium supposedly explains this. The section in
muonium is entirely unsourced, and only explains things in terms of "normally" and "mostly" which are only casual observations, which can be explained just as easily by the otherwise expected names simply being taken - the same reason the muon-antimuon bound state is called terms like "mumuonium", "dimuonium", and "true muonium".
In-fact, in searching further to find something that might unambiguously support your case, I'm struggling to find an use of "onium" as a noun referring to these particles let alone defining it as a particle bound with "its" antiparticle as opposed to "an" antiparticle. The majority (all?) of the scholarly literature I could find using "onium" as a noun actually refers to
onium ions suggesting that should be the primary topic for this term. Seems I'm not the only one: the term was called into question earlier by
Geoffrey.landis (
talk·contribs) way back in 2012.
The terminology I did find simply refers to "leptonic atoms", which would correspond to the wording "an" not "its" in the opening line. (Perhaps we should discuss moving the article to that title? The material about pionium would need to be moved elsewhere or it could just be deleted, given it is apparently unsourced and there's separate article all about them.)
I'd be happy to concede this if you know of an authority in the field that has made this an established convention. I'm not aware of any such convention being employed by IUPAP or IUPAC, although they have established the term "muonium" for
Muonium with the symbol Mu. -
Scyrme (
talk)
15:14, 27 November 2021 (UTC)reply
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Physics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of
Physics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join
the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PhysicsWikipedia:WikiProject PhysicsTemplate:WikiProject Physicsphysics articles
@
Headbomb: Your linguistic argument doesn't hold up. The term "muonium" was coined following the example of "positronium" which is also an onium despite the particle that gives it its name being called the "positron" not the "positr". In-fact the -onium suffix was retroactively derived from "positonium" and "muonium" in the first place; they set the precedent for the convention by creating the initial pattern. Additionally, muonium is already described as an onium in the article already (including the efn), or at least that's how it reads to me, so as without "an" the text appears to contradict itself. -
Scyrme (
talk)
00:49, 27 November 2021 (UTC)reply
To be clear, my reading of the efn is that it clarifies that not all onia follow the pattern implied by the (misleading) opening line; ie. that muonium, although an onium, is not a muon-antimuon onium. -
Scyrme (
talk)
01:05, 27 November 2021 (UTC)reply
As I've already explained, I don't agree that this article does clearly explain that. I don't see where
true muonium supposedly explains this. The section in
muonium is entirely unsourced, and only explains things in terms of "normally" and "mostly" which are only casual observations, which can be explained just as easily by the otherwise expected names simply being taken - the same reason the muon-antimuon bound state is called terms like "mumuonium", "dimuonium", and "true muonium".
In-fact, in searching further to find something that might unambiguously support your case, I'm struggling to find an use of "onium" as a noun referring to these particles let alone defining it as a particle bound with "its" antiparticle as opposed to "an" antiparticle. The majority (all?) of the scholarly literature I could find using "onium" as a noun actually refers to
onium ions suggesting that should be the primary topic for this term. Seems I'm not the only one: the term was called into question earlier by
Geoffrey.landis (
talk·contribs) way back in 2012.
The terminology I did find simply refers to "leptonic atoms", which would correspond to the wording "an" not "its" in the opening line. (Perhaps we should discuss moving the article to that title? The material about pionium would need to be moved elsewhere or it could just be deleted, given it is apparently unsourced and there's separate article all about them.)
I'd be happy to concede this if you know of an authority in the field that has made this an established convention. I'm not aware of any such convention being employed by IUPAP or IUPAC, although they have established the term "muonium" for
Muonium with the symbol Mu. -
Scyrme (
talk)
15:14, 27 November 2021 (UTC)reply