muon

See also: muón, múon, muôn, muốn, mướn, muộn, and mượn

English

Etymology

Contraction of the earlier term mu-meson; the particle has now been recategorised as a lepton. Coined by Italian physicist Enrico Fermi in 1951 in his book Elementary Particles.

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /ˈmjuːɒn/
  • Audio (Southern England)(file)
  • Rhymes: -uːɒn

Noun

muon (plural muons)

  1. (physics) An unstable elementary particle in the lepton family, having similar properties to the electron but with a mass 207 times greater.
    • 1951, Enrico Fermi, Elementary Particles:
      The μ-meson of Powell (called here muon) is instead a disintegration product of the pion, only weakly linked to the nucleons and therefore of little importance in the explanation of nuclear forces.
    • 1955 March, CP Sargent, “Diffusion Cloud-Chamber Study of Very Slow Mesons”, in Physical Review:
      The spectrum of electrons arising from the decay of the negative mu meson has been determined. The muons are arrested in the gas of a high pressure hydrogen filled diffusion cloud chamber.

Derived terms

Translations

Further reading

Anagrams

Dutch

Etymology

Contraction of mu-meson

Pronunciation
  • Audio(file)
  • Hyphenation: mu‧on

Noun

muon n (plural muonen)

  1. (physics) muon

Esperanto

Noun

muon

  1. accusative singular of muo
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