In an era of climate change scepticism and anti-vaxxers, scientists could do with all the public engagement they can get. But they might think twice about asking us to name their stuff.
UK funding body the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) recently . One suggestion 鈥� Boaty McBoatface 鈥� quickly got almost 10 times as many votes as its nearest rival. The surge of support for this gloriously silly idea crashed NERC鈥檚 servers. You have until 16 April to add your contribution.
Science used to be good at giving things pleasing names: phlogiston 鈥� thought to be a universal part of matter lost in combustion 鈥� comes to mind, along with the luminiferous ether, the medium once thought essential to carry light.
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Very Large Telescope 鈥� yawn!
Lately, though, it鈥檚 all got a bit dull and obvious: the Very Large Telescope, the Extremely Large Telescope, the Large Hadron Collider鈥� yawn. The proposed US particle accelerator that was to be known as the Superconducting Super Collider bucked the trend a bit. Sadly, it never made it to being average, let alone doubly super.
There鈥檚 mileage in going the other way sometimes. Physicists with inflated ideas of importance could learn a thing or two from Apple鈥檚 Alan C. Kay , who created a programming language he called Smalltalk. The name, he says, was a reaction against the tradition of naming things after impressive-sounding deities: 鈥淪ystems were named Zeus, Odin and Thor, and hardly did anything,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 figured that Smalltalk was so innocuous a label that if it ever did anything nice, people would be pleasantly surprised.鈥�
Hey, LADEE
Acronyms are another avenue, but can be painfully contrived. We鈥檙e looking at you, LADEE (the Lunar Atmosphere Dust Environment Explorer), MESSENGER (Mercury, Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging) and the unforgivable Solar Anomalous and Magnetospheric Particle Explorer (SAMPEX). And I speak as someone who helped create : the Tiny Europa Explorer by New Scientist and You.
Sometimes a bit of frivolity fits the bill. Everyone enjoys the fact that the three highest-energy neutrinos ever observed are called Bert, Ernie and Big Bird. Other times humour risks a misfire. There鈥檚 a gene called sonic hedgehog, which is less fun for the doctor telling a distraught parent that it is the cause of their child鈥檚 brain and skull defects. Holoprosencephaly is no laughing matter.
Two fingers to the establishment
That鈥檚 also why NERC (why couldn鈥檛 it have been called the Natural Environment Research Directorate?) can鈥檛 use Boaty McBoatface. The vessel will sail in notoriously difficult waters: should it ever sink and lives are lost, every report on its fate would be like a slap in the face for grieving relatives.
All is not lost for NERC, though. It has gained unanticipated PR points by keeping a sense of humour rather than getting stuffy about it all, and the British public has enjoyed doing what it does best 鈥� sticking two fingers up, Monty Python-style, to another part of the establishment.
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