[z2h-a6n]

As a condensed matter physicist (working in the same field but not on altermagnetism specifically), I would say this is being much more picky about the language than most people in the field tend to be. Moreover, I'm not sure you're even right about the language.

You are correct that this doesn't involve any changes to our understanding of electromagnetism in general; whether or not that means that altermagnetism is not a new type of magnetism is a matter of semantics. If I read in a paper or heard in a seminar that "altermagnetism is a new type of magnetism", I would not quibble with the language, though that phrase by itsself is almost tautologically pointless.

If you want a more technically meaningful phrase, I would propose that altermagnetism is a newly-discoved "magnetically ordered phase". Of course that doesn't fit so well in a headline.

[pdonis]

> I would say this is being much more picky about the language than most people in the field tend to be.

Perhaps, but I think that when communicating with the public (as opposed to communicating with other physicists), "a new kind of magnetism" suggests something that isn't explained by our current theories, not just something that our existing theories predict but hadn't been observed before.

[sesm]

> altermagnetism is a newly-discoved "magnetically ordered phase"

I would prefer this headline.

[Suppafly]

As someone who isn't a physicist, headlines like this make me think they discovered magnets that work with some non-ferrous material, which would be amazing. But then I was like "wouldn't that be crazy" and then came to the comments specifically to see what the actual explanation would be.

[lanza]

Sounds like shorthand terminology in your subfield is okay with the usage of "magnetism." But that's local slang, as a (former) high energy theorist I interpret the phrase "a new form of magnetism" as a new gauge theory or something equally spectacular. So I just rolled my eyes at the headline.