Etymology

Stern-Gerlach experiment

Today it means: An experiment demonstrating that the spatial orientation of angular momentum is quantized, and thus an atomic-scale system has intrinsically quantum properties. Full definition →

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The story

After its conception by Otto Stern in 1921, the experiment was first successfully conducted with Walther Gerlach in early 1922.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.