Since starting my PhD with the ATLAS project, I’ve learned about various acronyms used to name detectors, software, and other related projects in the particle physics community. A simple example would be LHC – Large Hadron Collider. Nothing funny going on there, it does exactly what it says on the tin. It collides hadrons (protons and lead ions in this case) and it is rather large.
Not all acronyms are quite as nice and to the point, however. I will list just a few of the more contrived ones (throughout, bold type is used to denote the letters used in the acronym).
Firstly ATLAS – A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS.
Since when did the final letters of a word count to appear in an acronym? Fair enough if you take the first two or three letters of a word, but taking the first and last letters. Come on! At least think of another word beginning with S!
Second, DEGREE – Dissemination and Exploitation of GRids in Earth sciencE.
Now we are just being stupid. Taking the last letter and not even the first letter. Of the word SCIENCE, no less.
GENIUS – Grid Enabled web eNvironment for site Independent User job Submission.
This one leaves whole words out. Important words like web and job. Which are pretty much the point of the environment. To submit jobs through the web… I can ALMOST forgive the use of ‘N for environment’, but not when you omit such crucial words!
BaBar – B-Bbar detector. Now this is just adding letters to make it sound like cartoon elephants!
Finally, ATLANTIS – ATLAS eveNT dISplay.
Do I need to say anymore?
In the world of High Energy Physics, there is definately a trend of ‘pick your acronym first’ going on. What words the represent is entirely arbitrary as long as the Acronym sounds nice. If the words have relevence to the project, it’s just a bonus.
HONOURABLE MENTIONS (for comedy value):
GIGGLE – GIGascale Global Location Engine.
LEMON – LHC Era MONitoring.
PASTA – Processors, memory, Architectures, STorage and TApes.
and for the Twin Peaks fans:
DIANE – DIstributed ANalysis Environment.
#1 by Steve on October 8th, 2009
“PASTA – Processors, memory, Architectures, STorage and TApes.” – my comment doesn’t have the benefit of bold, but you should move your bold from the T to the A i suspect. PhD going well?
#2 by Tom on October 9th, 2009
whoops! well spotted!
i’ve not really done much yet, nor been paid yet haha.
), which is coded in java. so i have to learn java. it’s pretty much the same as C# though.
i have a project though, i’ll be developing/debugging/testing the event display, ATLANTIS (see the acronym above
i’ll be heading to CERN in november at some point i think, to register and such.
this year is more about lectures, helping out teaching and getting used to everything though. i have an office at least!
did you get a job yet?!