From the article: """ Schinzel and Zassenhaus predicted that every non-cyclotomic polynomial must have at least one root that’s outside the unit circle and at

From the article: """ Schinzel and Zassenhaus predicted that every non-cyclotomic polynomial must have at least one root that’s outside the unit circle and at least some minimum distance away. Or, to put the Schinzel-Zassenhaus conjecture in terms of repulsion, it predicted that the smallest roots of a non-cyclotomic polynomial — which might fall within the unit circle — effectively push other roots outside the unit circle, like magnets pushing each other away. You can think of the roots of a polynomial as negatively charged particles that repel each other with a force that decays when the distance increases, """ So if they can write a formula for distance between these roots, and it's always positive and has a similar dynamic to Newton's (or Maxwell's, or Ampere's) force, then why not call it repulsive force?