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> You’ve completely missed the point. I don't understand your point because it is nonsense: magnetite was named after Magnes [1] and Pliny wrote about him and

> You’ve completely missed the point. I don't understand your point because it is nonsense: magnetite was named after Magnes [1] and Pliny wrote about him and his discovery two thousand years ago. The most credible alternatives for the etymology of "magnetite" are Magnesia ad Sipylum (Manisa, TY) or Magnesia, GR, all of which existed long before the concepts of ferro- or electro-magnetism were described. Either way, eurocentrism is the only reason you associate the word "magne-{whatever}" with the physical phenomenon. Magnes/Manisa/Magnesia => magnetite => more than a millenium of development in physics and language => magnetism => you associating "magnetite" with "magnetic". All words are made up. > “Seuss” presumably tells you something meaningful about suessite. > “Greig” presumably tells you something meaningful about greigite. Narrator: they don't. They were keywords to search for before making a nonsensical argument. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnes_the_shepherd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnes_the_shepherd

driggs 5y ago
Is my point nonsense, or are you unable to see past your own pedantry? Sure, if you insist on invoking Pliny The Elder, I'll grant you that magnetite was originally a bad name. And then humans discovered electromagnetism. Now geology students all over the world invoke a word that didn't even exist - which has the same root name as the mineral, owing to the fact that the mineral has that property. It's now a good name. And every modern geology student is thankful, because they think of "magnetism", not the thousand-year-old root of the word "magnetism" which predated our discovery of the physical phenomenon. I wrote "presumably" in my reply to you above because I don't know or care what seussite is, and was typing on a cell phone at 2AM. The point was the point. If I flipped a boolean bit because you were trying to trick me, then all you've done is prove that those examples are also bad names rather than good names. Names ought to have meaning, when possible, rather than being arbitrary. If you still think that point is nonsense, and are unable to understand that argument beyond the details of an example, then you're going to have a long successful career as the guy people regret inviting to their party. PS: Disagreeing with an argument doesn't make it nonsense.

driggs 5y ago

Is my point nonsense, or are you unable to see past your own pedantry? Sure, if you insist on invoking Pliny The Elder, I'll grant you that magnetite was originally a bad name. And then humans discovered electromagnetism. Now geology students all over the world invoke a word that didn't even exist - which has the same root name as the mineral, owing to the fact that the mineral has that property. It's now a good name. And every modern geology student is thankful, because they think of "magnetism", not the thousand-year-old root of the word "magnetism" which predated our discovery of the physical phenomenon. I wrote "presumably" in my reply to you above because I don't know or care what seussite is, and was typing on a cell phone at 2AM. The point was the point. If I flipped a boolean bit because you were trying to trick me, then all you've done is prove that those examples are also bad names rather than good names. Names ought to have meaning, when possible, rather than being arbitrary. If you still think that point is nonsense, and are unable to understand that argument beyond the details of an example, then you're going to have a long successful career as the guy people regret inviting to their party. PS: Disagreeing with an argument doesn't make it nonsense.