boson
Americannoun
noun
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Any of a class of elementary or composite particles, including the photon, pion, and gluon, that are not subject to the Pauli exclusion principle (that is, any two bosons can potentially be in the same quantum state). The value of the spin of a boson is always an integer. Mesons are bosons, as are the gauge bosons (the particles that mediate the fundamental forces). They are named after the physicist Satyendra Nath Bose.
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Compare fermion See Note at elementary particle See Table at subatomic particle
Etymology
Origin of boson
1945–50; named after S. N. Bose (1894–1974), Indian physicist; see -on 1
Compare meaning
How does boson compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
Explanation
A boson is a nuclei with an even mass number. Bosons are subatomic particles. An atom isn’t the smallest thing in the world: there are also subatomic particles, such as bosons. Bosons get their name from Indian physicist S. N. Bose, who first described their behavior. If you want to understand bosons thoroughly, you'd better take a class in in particle physics. In a nutshell, a boson has a symmetric wave-function, therefore obeying Bose-Einstein statistics but not the Pauli exclusion principle. Physicists study bosons to understand how the universe works at the tiniest level.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
That performance, which included eight missed layups, trails only the 32.2 percent effort in a loss to Boson College, the Cavaliers’ only loss outside of Quadrants 1 and 2.
From Washington Post • Mar. 15, 2023
In June, Boson Protocol bought a an entire block of the Vegas City gambling district of Decentraland.
From New York Times • Nov. 30, 2021
Boson Protocol, a technology company, is bridging the gap between the metaverse and physical world with a new venture designed to allow consumers to purchase fashion NFTs for their avatars from a platform, Decentraland.
From Seattle Times • Jun. 9, 2021
Recently, a Chinese team led by Pan Jianwei has published a paper that shows another problem—a Boson sampling experiment with 20 photons — can also be a pathway to show quantum supremacy.
From Salon • Nov. 10, 2019
Boson, turn our biggest, orangest sails toward Cryos, on the planet Sadalia.
From "Feed" by M.T. Anderson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
