Talk:William Gilbert
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[edit] Electric force
"In his book, he also static electricity using amber; amber is called elektron in Greek, so Gilbert decided to call its effect the electric force."
But Gilbert wrote in Latin, so he certainly didn't say "electric force". Niels H. de V. Heathcote 1967 says:
"Incidentally , had Gilbert intended vim electricam to be taken together he would have meant by it 'the power of attracting light bodies', precisely what Sir Thomas Browne meant by the word 'electricity'. ... It is for this reason that the rendering of vim electricam as 'electric force' is undesirable, since it is too suggestive of a measurable quantity (cf. the passage from Humboldt's Kosmos quoted by Mottelay (above, p. 267 and foot-note 29))." — Omegatron 02:50, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
