Reading a recent Scientific American I discovered that particle physics has a whole new a deluge of inferred, theoretical particles created to help explain this branch of study. Anyone who knows the scientist's explanation of the nuclei will be no stranger to the concept of 'fermions' and 'bosons'. But with the advent of supersymmetry models, many complimentary particles (superpartners) have been introduced to explain things. This gives us the fermionic partners by the names of photino, gluino, Wino, Zino, gravitino, and higgsino. The bosonic partners are a selectron, smuon, sneutrino, squark, etc.
Now, isn't it a bit funny that completely theoretical, and all but empirically disproven particles (thanks to particle accelerators) like the elusive 'Higgs' get their own 'predicted' symmetry partner. Much of a nothingness I guess. In any case, don't you think these great scientists could have been a little more inventive with their names? I mean, a 'Wino and 'Zino' sounds like micro$chrott programs and a 'smuon', well the less said the better. I think these wildly inventive blokes need to be compactified. [g]
