Even though we can't hear an excited atom, I'll bet the sound it makes is "wheeeeeeeeeee"
The sound of silence: One excited atom is so quiet that the human ear cannot detect it
Boffins believe they have successfully demonstrated the sound a single atom makes when excited - even though it is completely inaudible to the human ear. The researchers at the University of Columbia and Sweden's Chalmers University of Technology "captured" the very soft sound, according to a paper published in Science journal …
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Sunday 14th September 2014 08:59 GMT Kelly Fiveash
From the editor Lewis Page:
"Here on the pages of the Reg the word 'boffin' is a title of honour accorded only to researchers we respect - generally from the proper sciences and able to do hard sums. Lesser practitioners (for instance business-studies or psychology professors purveying dubious surveys and statistical analyses) are generally known as 'eggheads' or 'trick-cyclists', for instance.
We get a fair bit of positive mail from people we have dubbed boffins, so we're fairly sure most of them know this, but it never hurts to be sure."
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Sunday 14th September 2014 17:13 GMT Juan Inamillion
For as long as I can remember (and I am quite old) and because I once had aspirations to forge a career in science, the term 'boffin' has always been an affectionate one aimed specifically at the truly clever-clogs what can do hard sums and stuff, like Lewis says...
I, for one, welcome our Boffin Overlords.
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Monday 15th September 2014 14:47 GMT Bucky 2
Boffings
I'm getting tired of the word Boffins. The Register is the worst offender of using the word and it keeps showing up in Google News.
Actually, I love the word. It always takes me a minute to process, during which time, I speculate on the relationship of the noun with the verb, "to boff."
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