axion

Note: The name axion was introduced by the American physicist Stephen Weinberg (born 1933) in "A New Light Boson?", Physical Review Letters, vol. 40, no. 4 (January 23, 1978), p. 233; and by American physicist Frank Wilczek (born 1951) in "Problems of Strong P and T Invariance in the Presence of Instantons," Physical Review Letters, vol. 40, no. 5, p. 279. In an article in the online journal Quanta, "Time's (Almost) Irreversible Arrow" (January 7, 2016), Frank Wilczek explained the coinage as follows: "A few years before [in 1977], a supermarket display of brightly colored boxes of a laundry detergent named Axion had caught my eye. It occurred to me that 'axion' sounded like the name of a particle and really ought to be one. So when I noticed a new particle that 'cleaned up' a problem with an 'axial' current, I saw my chance. (I soon learned that Steven Weinberg had also noticed this particle, independently. He had been calling it the 'Higglet.' He graciously, and I think wisely, agreed to abandon that name.) Thus began a saga whose conclusion remains to be written."