On Mon, 2017-07-10 at 16:47 +0200, De'vID wrote:
On 10 Jul 2017 4:24 pm, "Steven Boozer" <sboozer@uchicago.edu> wrote:
Klingon Word of the Day for Sunday, July 09, 2017
Klingon word: pay'an Part of speech: noun Definition: particle Source: qep'a' 23
De'vID:
This looks like it's an obvious pun, but "pion" seems overly specific.
Others have suggested "peon" (a laborer who is obliged to do menial work) and the related "pawn", but I think "pion" is more likely. Perhaps Okrand liked the sound of the (somewhat related) word.
I just got it.
It's the letter "p" plus "an", which is an article in English: p-article.
In particle physics, a pion is any of three subatomic particles: 0 + -. Each pion consists of a quark and an antiquark. They are unstable, with the charged pions (+, -) decaying with a mean lifetime of 26 nanoseconds (2.6 x 10^-8 sec), and the neutral pion (0) decaying with a much shorter lifetime of 8.4 x 10^-17 sec. Charged pions most often decay into muons and muon neutrinos, while neutral pions generally decay into gamma rays. - DloraH