(It is especially frustrating in its most dire form, when it’s implied that the concern was chemical ignition, i.e. ordinary fire. The concern was actually about nuclear ignition. Other retellings often say “set fire to” which implies ordinary fire.)
I’m peeved by the fact that stellar nucleosynthesis processes are usually called “burning” rather than “fusion”, BTW.
Stars are awesome (in the old-school non-diluted sense) which naturally makes it tempting to use more evocative language when talking about them. And you could think of ‘burning’ in such usage referring more to incandescence rather than rapid oxidation.
I was going to object to the idea that “fusion” isn’t evocative enough, but I guess that whoever first named stellar nucleosynthesis “burning” hadn’t been exposed to Dragon Ball Z, Gillette advertising and repeated claims that “thirty years from now” fusion power will solve all of our problems.
I’m peeved by the fact that stellar nucleosynthesis processes are usually called “burning” rather than “fusion”, BTW.
Stars are awesome (in the old-school non-diluted sense) which naturally makes it tempting to use more evocative language when talking about them. And you could think of ‘burning’ in such usage referring more to incandescence rather than rapid oxidation.
I was going to object to the idea that “fusion” isn’t evocative enough, but I guess that whoever first named stellar nucleosynthesis “burning” hadn’t been exposed to Dragon Ball Z, Gillette advertising and repeated claims that “thirty years from now” fusion power will solve all of our problems.
(And, of course, the real question here is whether Jews are allowed to operate fusion reactors on Shabbat. ;-))
Don’t look at this Wikipedia article, or your head will explode.
For some reason that doesn’t bother me as much.