[Ads-l] Antedating of "Antimatter" for Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Excellent citation, Fred. Nice quick update, Jesse. It looks like the
OED places anti-matter under anti-particle with the same 1953
citation.

Here is an instance of "anti-matter' with the desired sense in 1934.

Date: Feb. 24, 1934
Journal: The Science News-Letter
Volume 25, Number 672
Article: Existence of Anti-Photon Suggested by Nobelist
Start Page 115, Quote Page 115, Column 2
Published by: Society for Science & the Public

https://www.jstor.org/stable/3910714

[Begin excerpt]
The sources behaved in every way like respectable atoms. For the sinks
one had to assume a kind of negative or anti-matter. This was the
difficult which kept those old theories of matter in the realm of
fantastic speculation, although the mathematics was perfect.
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Sun, Mar 7, 2021 at 9:43 PM Jesse Sheidlower <jester at panix.com> wrote:
>
> Thanks, Fred. Updated.
>
> On Mon, Mar 08, 2021 at 02:05:45AM +0000, Shapiro, Fred wrote:
> > antimatter (Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction 1953)
> >
> > "Antimatter" occurs in the 1948 book Cosmic rays and nuclear physics by the physicist Lajos Jánossy:
> >
> > The other type of matter might be called the "anti matter." In collision the two types of matter would annihilate each other and give rise to intense radiation.
> >
> > Fred Shapiro
> >
> > .
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org