superatomn.
/ˈsuːpərˌatəm/, /ˈsjuːpərˌatəm/, U.S. /ˈsupərˌædəm/ 1.
a. A hypothetical entity regarded as higher on some sort of scale than an atom. Now rare.
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1922 Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc. 61 p. xvii He [sc. Marquis A. de Gregorio] now regards the ether as a ‘dynamic fluid’ composed of ‘imponderable particles, extremely minute, of the condensed fluid itself’, which he calls ‘superatoms’.
1929 Sci. News Let. 30 Nov. 341/2 According to the relativity theory of Einstein..the particles of the traditional atomic theory..cannot be the objects determining space. He has therefore postulated a sort of super-atom filling and creating space.
1930 Sci. Monthly Oct. 351/2 Although the classical chemical atom no longer exists, the term has been retained... By retaining the word, we may hope to carry over into the realm of superatoms some of the time-proved traditions of thought and action of the field of chemistry.
b. Chemistry and Physics. A molecule or a group of atoms which exhibits some of the properties or behaviour of an individual atom.
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the world > matter > chemistry > atomic chemistry > [noun] > molecules > other molecules
supermolecule1834
open chain1880
excimer1960
exciplex1966
superatom1972
1972 Sci. Amer. (U.K. ed.) Aug. 36/3 The set of six carbons and six hydrogens of a benzene ring is regarded as a kind of superatom.
1990 Sci. News 138 300/1 By changing the core and controlling the branching patterns as dendrimers grow out to their largest spherical state, Tomalia envisions creating a ‘molecular-level periodic table’ of superatoms.
2005 Toronto Star (Nexis) 20 Nov. d4 The [Bose–Einstein] condensates are a truly bizarre state of matter in which hundreds of thousands of atoms lose their individuality, all winding up with the same energy and overlapping in the same position—a superatom, in layman's terms.
2008 Proc. National Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 105 9161/1 One can also envisage a host of stable cluster materials, made out of ligand-protected gold nanoclusters that are electronically stable species or ‘superatoms’, bound together by bridging ligands.
2. Astronomy. An extremely compact mass of matter and energy from which the big bang was formerly thought to have proceeded. Now chiefly historical.The expansion of the universe from a single primeval atom was proposed by G. Lemaître in 1927, though he did not use the word superatome. In modern cosmology the big bang is thought to have proceeded from a singularity of infinite density, rather than from Lemaître's finite superatom.
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the world > existence and causation > existence > materiality > [noun] > matter or corporeal substance > postulated types of matter
subtile mattera1500
subtle matter1660
materia subtilis1665
superatom1937
1937 R. D. Rusk Atoms, Men & Stars xii. 195 The particular solution of these equations toward which he has lately leaned represents a universe which has continually expanded from some original state, which Lemaître has tried to describe graphically as that of a great ‘super-atom’.
1945 Sci. News Let. 8 Sept. 149/1 The whole universe..got its start as a single super-atom of unimaginable energy content, that exploded a couple of billions of years ago.
1988 R. Bowen Isotopes in Earth Sci. i. 4 Only the infinitely dense, hot and compressed point of singularity of the Big Bang could have done so, exploding infinitely violently and with an infinite recession velocity from a sole, undifferentiated and indivisible super-atom, the ‘ylem’ of George Gamow.
2003 L. Belkora Minding Heavens vii. 336 Lemaître speculated on the origin of the universe from what he called a primeval atom or super-atom, a nugget containing all that was or ever could be.
This is a new entry (OED Third Edition, June 2012; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1922