Conphysics and Calling a Rabbit Smeerp

[SHiNKiROU]

If a conworld has made-up physics and chemistry, should we make up words for these concepts, or should we borrow terms from real-life science?
Here are some examples:
Conphysics:
1. The particles transferred when a chemical reaction took place are small charged particles. They should be called electrons.
2. In the conworld, light is exclusively a particle and there are three types: red, green and blue. They allow people see things, but they have divergent behaviors from the real world when dealing with cosmological and subatomic scales. More importantly, diffraction do not exist in the conworld. Should they still be called photons?
3. Spheres that give out light are stars, and the sphere that lights Earth should be called the Sun.
Conchemistry: A made-up periodic table, but we can find elements that act like carbon, but it is not carbon because there are many other properties that do not overlap. Should we call them carbon?
Conbiology:
1. Cells exist in the conworld, but the structure is different from real-world cells since cells control magical energy. I think we should still call them cells.
2. Should words like protein and hemoglobin be used in the conworld? Comparing conworld chemistry to real-life chemistry is like comparing apples and oranges, but we should call them because of counterparts.

Some reasons to do "call a rabbit smeerp" in conworld science are:
1. Not confusing with real-life scientific terms
2. An average reader will not notice it

Some reasons to borrow real-life science terms
1. Many science terms are familiar: light, electron, laser, lung, genes
2. We should not leave a gap in everyday vocabulary of the conworld people
3. We should judge conworld science by their features
4. We don't care if the sun in the fantasy world is powered by magic. It is sun after all

Some reasons for "doesn't matter":
1. Calling a rabbit smeerp is bad because it fakes exoticity, but I think using "rabbit" or "smeerp" will not make a difference when describing conworld science: The conworld science itself is exotic enough, using made-up words or borrowed words will not make a further difference. Therefore, the author is not abusing "calling a rabbit smeerp" here.
2. We can call electron both "electron" and "mu particle", and cultures and conlangs justify that

I know that blood should be called blood even if conworld blood is made of smeerpium, but there are full of borderline cases we dig to subatomic and cosmological scales. I called gravity gravity even if gravity in my conworld is inverse-cube and is powered by flowing particles. However, I'm unsure about conworld electromagnetism and nuclear forces.
If magic in the conworld is justified by physics, should the label "magic" still be used?
What is your guideline on this? What did you do on your conworld's physics?

[GBR]

I think this completely relies on context.
If I were writing a novel, I'd try and retain as many real terms as possible, and only explain differences in behaviour when necessary. Terry Pratchet has a lovely description of light as it interacts with magic in his books, IIRC. He still calls it light though.
So you have to ask yourself, is the diffence going to have a major impact on how your reader imagines your story? If yes, and you can't get around it with a one-time explanation, maybe a new term is necessary. If no, just forget it. Most people are not physicists, and most people like a prose style that doesn't intrude onto the story too much.

If you're writing a consci paper, again, I think it depends on you're perspective. Is this a real-world scientist commenting on the conworld's science? Then you could have fun making up new real-world terms (e.g. Not borrowing them from the conworld's conlang). If its written from the perspective of a conworld scientist, I guess that could justify completely new terms that have no relation to a real-world language.

[Torco]

More narrowly than context, I think, it depends on the kind of text you want to produce: like, if you want to showcase the way people have figured out their world, which works magically or differently, then it will be more interesting to show us their concepts and allow the reader/audience to discover how they're similar to electron and other stuff they might know. For me, it would also be kind of weird to hear stuff like "he grabbed an electron and put it in a jar" even if the author has explained that electrons, in this world, electrons behave like snowflakes.

[GBR]

You're mostly right, though I think if electrons were snowflakes they wouldn't be electrons any more, if you see what I mean. It's clearly a spectrum.

[bulbaquil]

You're mostly right, though I think if electrons were snowflakes they wouldn't be electrons any more, if you see what I mean. It's clearly a spectrum.

Right. For me, the salient criteria that would justify calling something an "electron" are twofold and as follows:

1. It is microscopic - you can't see an electron with the naked eye.
2. It has something to do with electricity.

Similarly, the salient criteria that would justify calling something a "sun" in my mind is basically "a bright light in the sky whose presence or absence determines whether it's daytime or nighttime". The salient criteria for calling something a biological "cell" is, to me, "a fundamental, microscopic component of the body associated with some aspect thereof" (so blood cell, brain cell, etc) - not how many vacuoles it has, or how long its endoplasmic reticulum is, or whether it has midichlorians instead of mitochondria. But again, your mileage will vary.

[Torco]

1. It is microscopic - you can't see an electron with the naked eye.
2. It has something to do with electricity.

right, i agree... however those microscopic things can still be puts in jars, jarringly

[Melend]

Looking up the etymology of the terms is often helpful.

For example - 'electron' comes from ancient Greek meaning "bright-shining" (or something thereof) and the word most closely related is 'electrum', an alloy of gold and silver. Electrons were given that name because of experiments in which charge differentials at different ends of a partially-evacuated glass tube produced a "shining beam" of light.

[Torco]

Actually it comes from the greek amber, I'm rather sure

[Melend]

I looked it up online, and several sources mention amber. (Also the alloy, but in a lesser mode.)

I guess it's yet another of the bits of misinformation I've absorbed in my schooling. It's actually rather frightening to learn how much of what I was taught was wrong.

[Melend]

Further research indicates that while the most direct link is to the electrostatic properties of amber, the word 'electrum' is also used several times in classical sources to describe a mysterious glow - most especially in the visions of Ezekiel.

Hmm.

[Torco]

yeah, far as i understand it its got to do with the fact that amber is kind of electrostatic and so the dudes who figured that out, greeks, went all "oh, that weird thing that ambar does" and so "electric". Phillip Pullman does a gag on it when in his parallel world people refer to electricity as "ambaric force".