Terminology Title

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    Some works of fiction are named after professional terms. The terms used may have only tangential relation to the actual content of the work and be there courtesy of Rule of Cool, or be major plot points. This type of title tells the audience that the makers of the film know what they're talking about (Whether or not this is actually the case.

    Compare Mad Lib Thriller Title, which often invokes the same effect, and Literary Allusion Title, which takes another approach to sounding intelligent.

    Examples of Terminology Title include:

    Film

    • The Black Hole: A region of space from which nothing, not even light, can escape.
    • Chill Factor: The felt air temperature on exposed skin due to wind.
    • Drop Zone: The area above and around a location where a parachutist jumps and expects to land.
    • Event Horizon: A boundary in spacetime beyond which events cannot affect an outside observer.
    • Pi: A mathematical constant whose value is the ratio of any circle's circumference to its diameter in the Euclidean plane
    • The Theory Of Everything: A putative theory of theoretical physics that fully explains and links together all known physical phenomena, and predicts the outcome of any experiment that could be carried out in principle.
    • SubZero: Literally means "beneath zero." As such, it is usually used for negative numbers, especially with regards to temperature.
    • Supernova: A stellar explosion that is more energetic than a nova.
    • Source Code: Text written in computer programming language.

    Literature

    • Fahrenheit 451 - The temperature at which paper burns.
    • Rotating Cylinders and the Possibility of Global Causality Violation - In a slight twist of this trope, this Larry Niven time travel story uses the exact title of the real life scientific paper that described the possible time travel device.

    Live Action TV

    Music

    • The Dark Side of the Moon: Refers literally to the hemisphere of the Moon that is not currently lit by the sun, or figuratively to the "far side": the hemisphere that is permanently turned away from Earth.

    Video Games

    • Dead Space: Air that is inhaled by the body in breathing, but does not take part in gas exchange.
    • Fallout: The residual radiation hazard from a nuclear explosion.
    • Half Life: The amount of time it takes for half of a given substance with a limited lifespan to decay (typically used for radioactive decay). The original Half Life also uses this for its expansions specifically with physics related terms, although it does manage to make a Multiple Reference Pun out of them sometimes;
      • Decay
      • Blue Shift: Both a reference to the effect the Doppler shift has on light being emmited from objects approching you and the name of the work shift that falls under Barney's duties.
      • Opposing Force - A two-fer: a reference to Newton's laws and to an "opposing force" used in military simulations.
    • Mass Effect. Though the scientific term is fictional, the tone is unmistakable, especially since said term is named after a real though largely unrelated one ("mass defect).
    • Singularity: A point at which a given mathematical object is not defined or not well-behaved, for example infinite or not differentiable.
    • Grand Theft Auto: A police term for the theft of a motor vehicle.

    Tabletop Games

    • Eclipse Phase: The period between when a virus enters a cell, and when the cell is completely taken over by the virus.
    • Shadowrun adventure Total Eclipse: An astronomical event that occurs when a celestial object is temporarily obscured, either by passing into the shadow of another body or by having another body pass between it and the viewer.

    Real Life

    • Several brands of cars are named after scientific terms: the Laser, the Proton, Nissan Pulsar etc.
    1. ↑ Also a pun, as it focuses on a family that ostensibly got its money from property development, and the main action of the show is what happens after the patriarch of the family gets arrested.
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