2014-04-26 10:52:28 -04:00
|
|
|
barn
|
|
|
|
|
|
2014-04-26 11:54:15 -04:00
|
|
|
n. [uncommon; prob. from the nuclear military] An unexpectedly large
|
|
|
|
|
quantity of something: a unit of measurement. Why is /var/adm taking up so
|
|
|
|
|
much space? The logs have grown to several barns. The source of this is
|
|
|
|
|
clear: when physicists were first studying nuclear interactions, the
|
|
|
|
|
probability was thought to be proportional to the cross-sectional area of
|
|
|
|
|
the nucleus (this probability is still called the cross-section). Upon
|
|
|
|
|
experimenting, they discovered the interactions were far more probable than
|
|
|
|
|
expected; the nuclei were as big as a barn. The units for cross-sections
|
|
|
|
|
were christened Barns, (10 -24 cm 2 ) and the book containing cross-sections
|
|
|
|
|
has a picture of a barn on the cover.
|
|
|
|
|
|
