name
Meaning 1
A surname.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
Standard Lemma guide
beable
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
Pronunciation
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-
/ˈbiː.əbl/
noun
Meaning 2
anything that could possibly be, in particular in any of a number of superimposed quantum states
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Qualifier: quantum theory
Topics: human-sciences, natural-sciences, philosophy, physical-sciences, physics, sciences
Examples
- 1984 J. S. Bell: Beables for Quantum Field Theory CERN-TH.4035/84, In particular we will exclude the notion of “observable” in favour of that of “beable”. The beables of the theory are those elements which might correspond to elements of reality, to things which exist. Their existence does not depend on “observation”. Indeed observation and observers must be made out of beables. I use the term “beable” rather than some more committed term like “being” or “beer” to recall the essentially tentative nature of any physical theory. Such a theory is at best a candidate for the description of nature. Terms like “being”, “beer”, “existent”, etc., would seem to me lacking in humility. In fact “beable” is short for “maybe-able”.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
History
Etymology
From be + -able; coined by Northern Irish physicist John Stewart Bell in 1984 in partial analogy to "observable".