History and Etymology for axion

Note: The name axion was introduced by the American physicist Stephen Weinberg (born 1933) in "A New Light Boson?", Physical Review Letters, vol. 40, no. 4 (January 23, 1978), p. 233; and by American physicist Frank Wilczek (born 1951) in "Problems of Strong P and T Invariance in the Presence of Instantons," Physical Review Letters, vol. 40, no. 5, p. 279. In an article in the on-line journal Quanta, "Time's (Almost) Irreversible Arrow" (January 7, 2016), Frank Wilczek explained the coinage as follows: "A few years before [in 1977], a supermarket display of brightly colored boxes of a laundry detergent named Axion had caught my eye. It occurred to me that 'axion' sounded like the name of a particle and really ought to be one. So when I noticed a new particle that 'cleaned up' a problem with an 'axial' current, I saw my chance. (I soon learned that Steven Weinberg had also noticed this particle, independently. He had been calling it the 'Higglet.' He graciously, and I think wisely, agreed to abandon that name.) Thus began a saga whose conclusion remains to be written."

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