volta-electric

English

Alternative forms

• voltaelectric

Adjective

volta-electric (not comparable)

1. (physics, dated) Of or pertaining to voltaic electricity, i.e. electric currents, or voltaism, the chemical generation of electricity.

   Synonym: voltaic

   • 1831 November 24, Michael Faraday, “Experimental Researches in Electricity”, in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, volume 122, published 1832, pages 138–39:

     The similarity of action, almost amounting to identity, between common magnets and either electro-magnets or volta-electric currents, is strikingly in accordance with and confirmatory of M. Ampere’s theory, and furnishes powerful reasons for believing that the action is the same in both cases; […] I propose to call the agency thus exerted by ordinary magnets, magneto-electric or magnelectric induction.

   • 1893, Lord Kelvin, “On the Theory of Pyro-electricity and Piezo-electricity of Crystals”, in The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, volume 36, number 222, page 459:

     In these equations v₁, v₂, … v₂₁ denote the volta-electric differences from copper which must be given to part 1, part 2, … part 21 of the surface of the molecule in order that the 21 piezo-electric and pyro-electric coefficients may have their given values […]

   • 1998, Iwan Rhys Morus, Frankenstein’s Children: Electricity, Exhibition, and Experiment in Early-Nineteenth-Century London, →ISBN, page 32:

     The first series of these researches, presented to the Royal Society on 24 November 1831, contained the first account of his discovery of voltaelectric and magnetoelectric induction.

Usage notes

• In the study of electricity, chemically generated volta-electric phenomena were originally contrasted to ones that are magnetically generated or magneto-electric. This distinction is no longer seen as salient in modern physics, so the term volta-electric has fallen out of use. When specifying chemically-generated electricity, the terms chemoelectrical or electrochemical may now be used instead.

Further reading

• “volta-electric”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.