boson

noun

bo·son | \ ˈbō-ˌsän

How to pronounce boson (audio)

, -ˌzän

How to pronounce boson (audio)

\

Definition of boson

: a particle (such as a photon or meson) whose spin quantum number is zero or an integral number — compare fermion

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Examples of boson in a Sentence

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Then there are the force carriers: photons, W and Z bosons, the Higgs, and gluons. — Chris Lee, Ars Technica, "Quark-gluon plasma reveals viscosity-free properties," 19 Dec. 2018 But, cool them enough, and two helium atoms can pair up to create a composite boson. — Chris Lee, Ars Technica, "Super-solid helium state confirmed in beautiful experiment," 10 Dec. 2018 According to the plan, the CEPC should be able to make a million Higgs particles over a decade, along with millions of other rare particles like W and Z bosons. — Avery Thompson, Popular Mechanics, "China Plans to Build a Particle Collider Five Times More Powerful Than the LHC," 14 Nov. 2018 After ten years of making bosons, the CEPC will be retired. — Avery Thompson, Popular Mechanics, "China Plans to Build a Particle Collider Five Times More Powerful Than the LHC," 14 Nov. 2018 Other elementary particles—those that researchers don’t believe can be divided any further—include six flavors of leptons and the Higgs, known as a scalar boson. — Jason Daley, Smithsonian, "The Large Hadron Collider Is Getting A Huge Power Boost," 19 June 2018 But there’s much more—protons and neutrons are made up of quarks held together by gluons, one of several types of boson. — Jason Daley, Smithsonian, "The Large Hadron Collider Is Getting A Huge Power Boost," 19 June 2018 By contrast, another hypothetical particle, the dark axial vector boson, isn't ruled out by this new measurement. — John Timmer, Ars Technica, "A physical constant’s value shouldn’t depend on how you measure it," 13 Apr. 2018 Particles like photons, on the other hand, are bosons. — Chris Lee, Ars Technica, "Giant atom hides its neighbors under a single-electron skirt," 7 Mar. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'boson.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

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7 Mar 2019

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Time Traveler for boson

The first known use of boson was in 1947

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