Disputatio:Fluxio electrica - Vicipaedia

# Disputatio:Fluxio electrica

### E Vicipaedia

Maybe Electricitas currens? Otherwise why feminine?--Ioshus (disp) 23:17, 2 Iunii 2007 (UTC)

  I chose feminine only to be consistent with Romance languages in using this term as a noun meaning current. I will try to find a specific latin source for the term, which should exist.--Rafaelgarcia 00:58, 3 Iunii 2007 (UTC)
    The term Electricity is not a good choice here because it has many associated meanings in Latin, english, spanish, etc., non necessarily refering to the flow or motion of charges in wires. For example, it can mean the "electric power" that you get by plugging into the wall, which really isn't the same thing as what a physicist means by electric current. See for example the english, italian and spanish pages on electric current. The english "electricity" page is very interesting read too concerning the various meanings of the term electricity. --Rafaelgarcia 00:58, 3 Iunii 2007 (UTC)
      The only alternative term I can think of that would mean the same thing as currens electrica is oneris electrici currens.--Rafaelgarcia 01:07, 3 Iunii 2007 (UTC)
        For 'current of the electrical kind', the obviously parallel metaphor is 'current of the riverine kind', and in Latin that's just plain fluvius and flumen and amnis (and a little current is a rivulus). If those are too confusing, because they'll make most people think of bodies of water, maybe fluxus would be OK, but remember that it's in your favorite declension! ;) IacobusAmor 01:25, 3 Iunii 2007 (UTC)
          I still think it shouldn't be hypallage...the onus is currens...--Ioshus (disp) 01:41, 3 Iunii 2007 (UTC)
          I'll try to research the best term during the next couple of days. Current in the physics sense here is different from ocean current and it also different from flow. It means "rate of flow of stuff past a point". In terms of water current would be gallons per minute going past a point in a pipe. Flow would be gallons.--Rafaelgarcia 01:49, 3 Iunii 2007 (UTC)

I do think we should use a word that could apply to a river current as well, but it's hard to come up with a good one. Flumen and fluxus both have the problems already mentioned. Unfortunately, all that Morgan gives is:

  98 electric current fluxus electricus* (Egger S.L. 33), fluor electricus* (Egger S.L. 33)

The terms anode and cathode were coined in 1834, so it seems plausible some coeval scientist wrote about the concept of electrical current in Latin. And note the OED entry for current:

  7. a. Electr. The name given to the apparent transmission or ‘flow’ of electric force through a conducting body: introduced in connexion with the theory that electrical phenomena are due to a fluid (or fluids) which moves in actual ‘streams’; now the common term for the phenomenon, without reference to any theory.

The three earliest examples given:

  1747 Gentl. Mag. XVII. 141 The frequent exciting such currents of ethereal fire in bed-chambers. 1752 FRANKLIN Let. Wks. 1887 II. 253 Perhaps the auroræ boreales are currents of this fluid in its own region, above our atmosphere. 1842 GROVE Corr. Phys. Forces 48 From the manner in which the peculiar force called electricity is seemingly transmitted through certain bodies..the term current is commonly used to denote its apparent progress.

It seems amply clear that the analogy is explicitly to currents of water. --Iustinus 02:24, 3 Iunii 2007 (UTC)

    Unfortunately these were all gropings for the right idea which came only after Faraday in 1850. Unfornately, although I have been looking, I have not found an attestation for currens electrica other than a fleeting mention in a vatican publication from 1950s. Nevertheless, I feel it is my duty as a physicist to point out again that from the point of view of physics "flow" is not the right word/concept. Obviously an electric current is associated with an electric flow, but they are not the same thing. (In some wikipedia pages they point out that the current is the flux of current density, but this is another thing entirely.)

    What is needed is to translate/express the idea rate of flow in Latin, a term that conveys "the rate of charges flowing in the wire" similar to currens electrica ("electric running") or currens electricitatis ("running of electricity"). Newton when he came up with a term for (what we today call) momentum expressed it as quantitas motus he didn't call it fluxus materiae. Perhaps motus electrica or motus electricitatis would be one solution. However, I think I found a better solution: fluxio electrica where the -io indicates the action or result of the action of flowing. I'll change the page to say this for now, but I'll continue researching to find if there is a better latin source.--Rafaelgarcia 03:24, 3 Iunii 2007 (UTC)
      I also would like to add fluxio has attestation with Newton where in his method of fluxions he used the term fluxion to convey 'rate of change.--Rafaelgarcia 03:29, 3 Iunii 2007 (UTC)
        That is true, he did. Fluxio seems like a good compromise until we can find something solid, and it may even be the mot juste. As for "flow," my comment that fluxus wouldn't work directly refered to that problem. But I think you're thinking a little too meticulously about this, given that "electric current" is pretty clearly a metaphor based on the idea of the current in a body of water. The fact that the English word is the same (and I presume other languages as well) is a big hint, but the quotations also make that explicit. If the current of a river is to much like the flow of a river... well, I guess the terms aren't as well differentiated for water as they are for electricity. But that is still what the word "current" realy means.
        But I'm dwelling too much on this. Your arguments for fluxio are decent, and we have nothing better right now. Of course, as you know, we want to avoid coining the terms ourselves, so if we can find a good citation that doesn't sound like it means "flow" (or "river") then we should probably use that. --Iustinus 04:43, 3 Iunii 2007 (UTC)

Receptum de "http://la.wikipedia.org../../../f/l/u/Disputatio%7EFluxio_electrica_493b.html"

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