Quote:
Originally Posted by Lamplighter
Femto is like "milli" or "micro", but equal to 10 to the -15th
or 0.000000000000001
A "barn" is a measure of area (10 to the -28 square meters)
or about the size of the uranium nucleus
(femtobarn = code word from WWII days of developing the atomic bomb)
And from my old math books I finally get use that famous phase:
It naturally follows that: 
The inverse femtobarn is how many particle collision events per femtobarn.
Oh, and here is another phase.
The derivation is left to the reader. 
Oh, oh. Here is something that tickled me...
The Higgs particle was named the "God particle" by Peter Higgs, who said,
"No one around him would allow it to be called "that God damn particle".
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Yes, to the individual meanings of "inverse", "femto", "barn" and "data", but how does tha allow "5 inverse femtobarns of data"???
Okay, femto = 10 to the -28. Inverse femto = 10 to the 28. But barn is area and you don't measure data in terms of area. How can you have any amount of barns of data?
Shopkeeper, I'll have five cubic hours of oranges, please.
I suspect leg-pulling. Maybe a mishievous scientist is feeding BS to an incredulous journalist.