Talk:Schwinger effect

Uncountability and articles

@Equinox Uncountable common nouns don't take a/an, but they can (and often do) take the (since the is nonspecific as to number):

• bread is usually uncountable (only taking a/an or showing up in its plural form breads) under a few very specific situations), yet utterances like "get the bread out of the cupboard", where it's used uncountably and takes the, are both common and grammatical.
• information is almost always uncountable, and is only very rarely seen as the plural informations or taking a/an, but we're perfectly fine with saying things like "the information that came in yesterday...".
• Likewise, Schwinger effect is uncountable in every use case of which I am aware (it refers to a single unique physical process dictated by the laws of physics), as evidenced by the fact that the phrase "a Schwinger effect" is ungrammatical; it takes only the count-neutral article the ("the Schwinger effect..."), as do most-to-all other uncountable common nouns. Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty ⚧️ Averted crashes} 02:25, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

@Whoop whoop pull up: Can you give me one full sentence where this phrase is uncountable? I think you're mistaken... "The paper" could be uncountable, yes, because it could be some paper; but "the Eiffel Tower" never can, because it's one tower. This is one effect; same principle. See mass noun. Equinox ◑ 18:56, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

@Equinox "The Schwinger effect is not expected to be seen at field strengths that are currently possible to produce" is one example of a full sentence using Schwinger effect uncountably. Many common nouns referring to universal physical phenomena are usually or always uncountable, such as gravitation or cosmic microwave background; it's not just limited to Schwinger effect. Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty ⚧️ Averted crashes} 19:04, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

@Whoop whoop pull up: That is definitely not uncountable. Taking this to WT:ID. Equinox ◑ 19:16, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

@Whoop whoop pull up This is a proper noun. You've essentially just ignored the point @Equinox has been making, and it's quite confusing.

As you say yourself, it refers to a single unique physical process dictated by the laws of physics. You can't have "more Schwinger effect", even if it can be more or less intense. Theknightwho (talk) 19:32, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

@Theknightwho By that definition, cosmic microwave background would have to be a proper noun (which it obviously isn't), since you also can't have "more cosmic microwave background", even if it can be more or less intense. Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty ⚧️ Averted crashes} 19:35, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

@Whoop whoop pull up No, because you can have a quantity of cosmic microwave background (e.g. you can say there is "more cosmic microwave background"). You can't have a quantity of Schwinger effect, and it is incorrect to say "more Schwinger effect". Theknightwho (talk) 19:38, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

@Theknightwho Except that you can't "have a quantity of cosmic microwave background", or, for that matter, of general relativity or (when it's being used to refer to the physical principle itself, rather than as a fancier term for gravity) of gravitation. There is only one, indivisible cosmic microwave background, general relativity, gravitation, or Schwinger effect. Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty ⚧️ Averted crashes} 19:50, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

@Whoop whoop pull up How would you define proper noun? Theknightwho (talk) 19:53, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

A noun that forms the personal name of an individual person, place, thing, or equivalent; a noun which cannot automatically be applied to an exact copy of the individual person/place/thing it is used for. For instance, if you have a dog named Fido, and you duplicate said dog with down-to-the-atom accuracy, the duplicate is a dog (dog being a common noun), but they're not Fido, the name of the specific dog that served as the duplication template (Fido being a proper noun), unless you actively name the duplicate Fido as well. (It gets more complicated if you're duplicating humans, or other sapient beings with the ability to name themselves, since these will generally self-apply the same name as that of the original, but the name is still being actively given to the duplicate [in this case, by themself], rather than applying automatically.) Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty ⚧️ Averted crashes} 20:04, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

(Pinging @Theknightwho, since I forgot to do so in the main comment.) Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty ⚧️ Averted crashes} 20:06, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

@Whoop whoop pull up I prefer the more straightforward definition that is well-cited at Wikipedia: a noun refers to a class of things, while a proper noun refers to an individual entity which, as you say, must be named separately to be referred to by that term. The reason why concepts are difficult is because it raises the question of what it means to duplicate a concept, but it is absolutely wrong to treat them as uncountable nouns (also known as mass nouns), because in theory there can be more than one of them. There could be two Schwinger effects, for example. We never pluralise because there is only one - but it's certainly not a mass noun. Theknightwho (talk) 20:22, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

And, because there could be (but aren't) two of them, it's certainly not a proper noun either. And you are correct in that it's obviously not a mass noun, but not all uncountable nouns are mass nouns. Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty ⚧️ Averted crashes} 22:15, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

No, that doesn't prevent something being a proper noun, as per the well-cited Wikipedia article that I already linked you. Theknightwho (talk) 13:52, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

I would have taken this to be a proper noun, although I see we are inconsistent in what eponymous discrete principles/effects/etc we label proper nouns (Coppersmith's attack, Abbott's method, Abegg's rule, Amdahl's law) vs common nouns (Pauli exclusion principle, Auger effect). (This seems like a case where the way our templates fail to provide the ability to distinguish "doesn't pluralize", "is a mass noun" and "is uncountable" is bad. As TKW says, it's not a mass noun.) Does CGEL or any other grammar reference work have anything relevant to say about this kind of thing? (Maybe not: as Wiktionarians found in an earlier discussion, even college grammar textbooks are often comically uninformed and uninformative about the difference between common and proper nouns, e.g. saying it's just capitalization.) - -sche (discuss) 20:25, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

CGEL gives as a test the incompatibility with the indefinite article a(n) (unless the noun is qualified): *Here is a soup for you (but This is a delicious soup).  --Lambiam 13:38, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

@-sche I'm curious; what about it makes it seem like a proper noun to you? Schwinger itself is a proper noun without a doubt, but that doesn't automatically make Schwinger effect one; something can be (and lots of things are) named after someone without being a proper noun (for instance, Morse code or Cowper's gland). BTW, I would classify all the examples you mention as common nouns, and most of them as uncountable common nouns (but not mass nouns). Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty ⚧️ Averted crashes} 22:20, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

It may feel like a proper noun because most referents of a proper noun (such as Allah, the Taj Mahal, or Schweinfurt) are unique and defy being counted. But this is a red herring. This term is rather similar to greenhouse effect. You can’t say, *After the first greenhouse effect was discovered, it took more than a century before another greenhouse effect was identified. It is always the greenhouse effect, as is evident in its definition: “The process by which a planet is warmed by its atmosphere.”  --Lambiam 13:38, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Why doesn't that make greenhouse effect a proper noun? Theknightwho (talk) 14:38, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Oxford Dictionaries defines the term proper noun as, “A name used for an individual person, place, or organization, spelled with initial capital letters, e.g., Larry, Mexico, and Boston Red Sox.” Generally speaking, the referent of a proper noun often bears no intrinsic semantic relation to the components of their name. The person named Aaron Augenblick may decide they don’t like their name and change it to Evelyn Ewigkeit. Organizations may also change their names but remain the same organization, like the former Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists is now The Animation Guild and Affiliated Optical Electronic and Graphic Arts, Local 839 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and Moving Picture Technicians, Artists and Allied Crafts of the United States, its Territories and Canada, American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations/Canadian Labour Congress.^[1] In contrast, the meaning of greenhouse effect is inextricably bound to the meanings of greenhouse and effect. The greenhouse effect is an effect observed to occur in greenhouses, first reported on by Fourier. Obviously, one cannot choose whimsically to rename this to the greeble effigy.  --Lambiam 20:43, 5 July 2022 (UTC)