14 lines
2.4 KiB
HTML
14 lines
2.4 KiB
HTML
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" standalone="no"?>
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>barn</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../B.html" title="B"/><link rel="previous" href="barfulous.html" title="barfulous"/><link rel="next" href="barney.html" title="barney"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">barn</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="barfulous.html">Prev</a><EFBFBD></td><th width="60%" align="center">B</th><td width="20%" align="right"><EFBFBD><a accesskey="n" href="barney.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="barn"/><dt xmlns="" id="barn"><b>barn</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="grammar">n.</span></dt></dt><dd><p> [uncommon; prob. from the nuclear military] An unexpectedly large
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quantity of something: a unit of measurement. “<span class="quote">Why is /var/adm
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taking up so much space?</span>” “<span class="quote">The logs have grown to several
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barns.</span>” The source of this is clear: when physicists were first
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studying nuclear interactions, the probability was thought to be
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proportional to the cross-sectional area of the nucleus (this probability
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is still called the cross-section). Upon experimenting, they discovered
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the interactions were far more probable than expected; the nuclei were
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“<span class="quote">as big as a barn</span>”. The units for cross-sections were
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christened Barns, (10<sup>-24</sup>
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cm<sup>2</sup>) and the book containing cross-sections has
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a picture of a barn on the cover.</p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="barfulous.html">Prev</a><EFBFBD></td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../B.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"><EFBFBD><a accesskey="n" href="barney.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">barfulous<EFBFBD></td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"><EFBFBD>barney</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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