van allen

1. 1.

   United States physicist who discovered two belts of charged particles from the solar wind trapped by the Earth's magnetic field (born in 1914)

   SynonymsJames Alfred Van Allen

   Broaderphysicist

Questions about van allen

What does van allen mean?

van allen means "United States physicist who discovered two belts of charged particles from the solar wind trapped by the Earth's magnetic field (born in 1914)".

What is another word for van allen?

Close synonyms include James Alfred Van Allen. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is van allen a common word?

van allen is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.