tomio13
commented
1 year ago I think, the key question is here:
- what would express the thing we are talking about?
- we have a collection of chemical substances combined with chemical and physical means
- components: elements of a set somehow bound together
- ensemble: elements of a set, often used in statistics
- composition: Merriam-Webster, 4 - a product of mixing or combining various elements or ingredients
- mixture: a product of mixing
- what are the possibilities of misunderstanding? Which of the terms are used in other fields that would mislead new users?
- what is the most commonly used term for similar cases?
- I think in chemistry, composition is the most common, but as I am no chemist, cannot be sure.
I am sure we can find someone who misunderstands any of the above terms, and there will never be a 100% agreement, but we have to pick one. What I would suggest here, that we try answering the questions above, and base our decision on what would be the most obvious non-conflicting term, so we do not confuse people too much. (See the meaning of elastic material in science and common life...)
from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Material
"Material is a substance or mixture of substances that constitutes an object."
Could we rename the current Ensemble as Mixture?
This question deserves a tag: @budschi @Pepe-Marquez @tomio13 @hampusnasstrom @domna