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January 2009Just Foolin' AroundAndré-Marie Ampère was born in January 1775 and James Watt in January 1776. Sure, it's coincidental, but if you're at all interested in terms named for people of science, you might get a charge out of using the Unabridged to discover scientific eponyms this month. To find more science terms named for individuals, choose either the Unabridged or the Collegiate for your reference, select Etymology from the Search Type drop-down menu, type scientist, physicist, or mathematician into search box, and click Search. A search on the word ampere in the Unabridged gives a result of five terms. The etymology tells us that ampere (or amp), a unit of electrical current, is named for the French physicist André-Marie Ampère. The definition provides a few other terms to investigate: coulomb, volt, and ohm. Clicking on those terms shows us that they are also named after scientists (a Frenchman, an Italian, and a German, respectively). (Note: not all volts honor Alessandro Volta, and if you consult the entry for joule-thomson effect, you'll learn Lord Kelvin was also Sir William Thomson). Look up watt in the Unabridged Advanced Search and you'll find six entries (including the double eponym Watson-Watt). In the definition of watt, you learn it is the basic unit of power named for Scottish inventor James Watt. Among those six entries you'll also find watt-second. It leads you back to joule, the unit of work named for the English physicist discussed above. |