While studying nature, scientists often encounter or create new material or immaterial objects and concepts and are compelled to name them.
Those are specific notions and terms, e.g., The increasing focus of science on technological applications results in extensive search for new materials having unusual or superior properties.
Unlike laser and SQUID, many names of the new devices and techniques are commonly used in full spelling, e.g., scanning tunneling microscope, etc.
Another famous example is frustration[6] used to describe ground state properties in condensed matter physics, and especially in magnetic systems.
Another group of physics terminology terms, exciton, magnon, phonon, plasmon, phason,[7] polaron, roton[8] etc., refers to quasiparticles – quanta of corresponding excitations (spin, heat, plasma, polarization waves), which do not exist separately and were imagined by theoretists to consistently describe properties of solids and liquids.
[12] The derivations are arbitrary however and can be mixed variously with modernisms, late Latin, and even fictional roots, errors and whims.
Some distinct term is necessary for any meaningful concept, and if it is not classical, a modern coinage would not generally be any more comprehensible (consider examples such as "byte" or "dongle").
This is common in everyday speech in some circles, saying "requiescat in pace" instead of "rest in peace" might be pretension or pleasantry, but in law and science among other fields, there are many Latin expressions in use, where it might be equally practical to use the vernacular.
That was not so long ago; from the latter days of the Roman empire, Classical Latin had become the dominant language in learned, civil, diplomatic, legal, and religious communication in many states in Europe.
The peak of the dominance of Latin in such contexts probably was during the Renaissance, but the language only began to lose favour for such purposes in the eighteenth century, and gradually at that.
The expression of fine distinctions in academically correct Latin technical terminology may well help in conveying intended meanings more flexibly and concisely, but the significance of the language need not always be taken seriously.
An inspection of any collection of references will produce a range of very variable and dubious usages, and often a great deal of obsessive dispute.
In contrast, the authoritative glossary attached to the textbook on Biological Nomenclature produced by the Systematics Association displays a very dismissive attitude to the question; for example, the only relevant entries it presents on the subject of the term sensu are: Such entries suggest that the Systematics Association is not concerned with hair-splitting in the use of the Latin terms.