1. New ideograms for physics
Pablo García-Risueño 1
, Apostolos Syropoulos 2
, Natàlia Vergés 3
1) Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Zum großen Windkanal 6, 12489 Berlin, Germany; risueno@physik.hu-berlin.de
2) Independent scholar, Xanthi, Greece; asyropoulos@yahoo.com
3) Ars Didactica, C/ Major 2, Besalú, 17850 Girona, Spain.
Abstract
Ideograms (symbols that represent a word or idea) have a great communicative value. They refer to concepts in a simple manner, thus making it easier the
understanding of complex ideas where such concepts appear. In addition, ideograms simplify the notation, which is often cumbersome for equations at the field
of physics. We propose ideograms for essential concepts of physics, like electron, photon or phonon. They are designed to be intuitive, and their goal is to make
the reading of equations more comfortable. Our symbols are included in a publicly available LATEX package.
The usefulness of ideograms
Ideograms are present in communication codes that we use daily. Examples of ideograms are the digits 0, 1,. . . , 9, mathematical symbols (like
+, −, %, ·, ×, √, ∈), emoticons, traffic signs or commercial logos. Symbols that represent a word are present in English (e.g., think of @, $ or &) and are
ubiquitous in other languages with many speakers, like Chinese, Korean, and Japanese.
Ideograms present several advantages with respect to words written using an alphabet. Ideograms imply a better and faster comprehension [1], while concepts
represented with ideograms are better identified and recalled [2]. When reading a word written in an aplhabet, we need to make up the sequence of sounds
that corresponds to it; however, with an ideogram the meaning can be directly understood. An example of the superiority of ideograms is that the human
mind identifies a concept like “hand” on a cartoon of a hand more quickly than on a photograph of it [3]. The advantage of ideograms can be gauged by
merely comparing the ease of reading numbers (1, 2, 3,. . . ) vs. their written names (one, two, three,. . . ) [4]. The features of ideograms are also illustrated
by the surprising fact that there exist people with neurological injuries who cannot read texts written with phonetic signs, but can do it if the text is written with
ideograms [5].
The reasons just described encouraged us to develop ideograms for basic concepts of physics. Despite the close link between mathematics and physics,
ideograms are ubiquitous in mathematics, but shyly used in physics. In particle physics some symbols are traditionally used, but to the best of our knowledge
they were not included in a LATEX package to date.
Equations of physics are often very complex and thus demand very heavy notation. With these ideograms we hope to make equations easier to understand, as
well as more elegant. Our ideograms are designed to be intuitive, easy to identify and to remember. To ease their identification, some of our designs contain
the initial letter of the word that they represent. Since it is a LATEX tradition to use the Computer Modern fonts, we have based our designs on these fonts,
nevertheless, these symbols should be usable with any other mathematics font.
The ideograms that we propose are included into the svrsymbols LATEX package that can be downloaded from www.ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/
svrsymbols.
List of proposed new symbols
The list of ideograms includes, among others, these characters:
Experimental v
Error q
Method A
Assumption u
Reference l
Spin (down) o (Z)
Orbit B
Fermion c
Photon b, L
Electron a
Proton d
Neutron g
Hole h
Phonon j
Exciton i
Polaron k
Plasmon p
Solid t
Graphene s
Atom C
Nucleus e
Ion f
Surface z
Water r
Positron m
Antiproton n
Antineutron y
(Anti)quark O (E)
Up (anti)quark U (K)
Down (anti)quark R (H)
Top (anti)quark T (J)
Bottom (anti)quark P (F)
Charm (anti)quark Q (G)
Strange (anti)quark S (I)
(Anti)muon x (w)
(Anti)neutrino N (M)
We welcome suggestions for additional new symbols.
References
[1] A. P. Shinamura, The American Journal of Psychology 100, 15 (1987).
[2] S. Park and T. Y. Arbuckle, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory 3(6), 631 (1977).
[5] T. A. Ryan and C. B. Schwartz, American Journal of Psychology 96, 66 (1956).
[4] B. D. and M. Coltheart, Neuropsychologia 17, 467 (1979).
[5] S. Sasanuma, Brain and Language 2, 369 (1975).
![New ideograms for physics
Pablo García-Risueño 1
, Apostolos Syropoulos 2
, Natàlia Vergés 3
1) Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Zum großen Windkanal 6, 12489 Berlin, Germany; risueno@physik.hu-berlin.de
2) Independent scholar, Xanthi, Greece; asyropoulos@yahoo.com
3) Ars Didactica, C/ Major 2, Besalú, 17850 Girona, Spain.
Abstract
Ideograms (symbols that represent a word or idea) have a great communicative value. They refer to concepts in a simple manner, thus making it easier the
understanding of complex ideas where such concepts appear. In addition, ideograms simplify the notation, which is often cumbersome for equations at the field
of physics. We propose ideograms for essential concepts of physics, like electron, photon or phonon. They are designed to be intuitive, and their goal is to make
the reading of equations more comfortable. Our symbols are included in a publicly available LATEX package.
The usefulness of ideograms
Ideograms are present in communication codes that we use daily. Examples of ideograms are the digits 0, 1,. . . , 9, mathematical symbols (like
+, −, %, ·, ×, √, ∈), emoticons, traffic signs or commercial logos. Symbols that represent a word are present in English (e.g., think of @, $ or &) and are
ubiquitous in other languages with many speakers, like Chinese, Korean, and Japanese.
Ideograms present several advantages with respect to words written using an alphabet. Ideograms imply a better and faster comprehension [1], while concepts
represented with ideograms are better identified and recalled [2]. When reading a word written in an aplhabet, we need to make up the sequence of sounds
that corresponds to it; however, with an ideogram the meaning can be directly understood. An example of the superiority of ideograms is that the human
mind identifies a concept like “hand” on a cartoon of a hand more quickly than on a photograph of it [3]. The advantage of ideograms can be gauged by
merely comparing the ease of reading numbers (1, 2, 3,. . . ) vs. their written names (one, two, three,. . . ) [4]. The features of ideograms are also illustrated
by the surprising fact that there exist people with neurological injuries who cannot read texts written with phonetic signs, but can do it if the text is written with
ideograms [5].
The reasons just described encouraged us to develop ideograms for basic concepts of physics. Despite the close link between mathematics and physics,
ideograms are ubiquitous in mathematics, but shyly used in physics. In particle physics some symbols are traditionally used, but to the best of our knowledge
they were not included in a LATEX package to date.
Equations of physics are often very complex and thus demand very heavy notation. With these ideograms we hope to make equations easier to understand, as
well as more elegant. Our ideograms are designed to be intuitive, easy to identify and to remember. To ease their identification, some of our designs contain
the initial letter of the word that they represent. Since it is a LATEX tradition to use the Computer Modern fonts, we have based our designs on these fonts,
nevertheless, these symbols should be usable with any other mathematics font.
The ideograms that we propose are included into the svrsymbols LATEX package that can be downloaded from www.ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/
svrsymbols.
List of proposed new symbols
The list of ideograms includes, among others, these characters:
Experimental v
Error q
Method A
Assumption u
Reference l
Spin (down) o (Z)
Orbit B
Fermion c
Photon b, L
Electron a
Proton d
Neutron g
Hole h
Phonon j
Exciton i
Polaron k
Plasmon p
Solid t
Graphene s
Atom C
Nucleus e
Ion f
Surface z
Water r
Positron m
Antiproton n
Antineutron y
(Anti)quark O (E)
Up (anti)quark U (K)
Down (anti)quark R (H)
Top (anti)quark T (J)
Bottom (anti)quark P (F)
Charm (anti)quark Q (G)
Strange (anti)quark S (I)
(Anti)muon x (w)
(Anti)neutrino N (M)
We welcome suggestions for additional new symbols.
References
[1] A. P. Shinamura, The American Journal of Psychology 100, 15 (1987).
[2] S. Park and T. Y. Arbuckle, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory 3(6), 631 (1977).
[5] T. A. Ryan and C. B. Schwartz, American Journal of Psychology 96, 66 (1956).
[4] B. D. and M. Coltheart, Neuropsychologia 17, 467 (1979).
[5] S. Sasanuma, Brain and Language 2, 369 (1975).](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/ab1516e4-9f8a-4586-8fca-9c91aad29178-160206163543/85/postersimbolos-1-320.jpg)
