[Phys-L] Re: A battery cell

["Frohne, Vickie" <VFrohne@BEN.EDU>]

I forgot to mention...I checked some books from the 1840's too, but they mentioned only static electrical phenomena. Nothing on Voltaic piles or Galvanism at all. The 1840's texts were mainly for high schools and academies, while Silliman and Ganot were at the college level. The science of voltaic electricity (as opposed to frictional electricity) apparently developed in the 1820's, and was fairly mature by the 1860's. The concept of EMF probably dates from the 1850's, perhaps in the realm of chemistry. Don't hold me to these dates - I only did about five minutes of paging through a few books. The oldest books aren't indexed, so it's entirely possible that I missed something. Besides figuring out who Peschel was (the book gave no clue), I suggest looking into the works of Faraday for the origin of EMF- he coined a lot of the words used to describe electrical phenomena.

Vickie Frohne

-----Original Message-----
From: Forum for Physics Educators [mailto:PHYS-L@list1.ucc.nau.edu]On
Behalf Of Frohne, Vickie
Sent: Monday, February 28, 2005 11:57 AM
To: PHYS-L@LISTS.NAU.EDU
Subject: Re: A battery cell


Silliman's Physics, 1861, has a very thorough treatment of voltaic pi=
les, chemical batteries, galvanism, electroplating, etc. The science =
of electrical batteries was well advanced by then.  In the theory sec=
tion, it quotes from Peschel (but doesn't say who that was), "When el=
ectricity is generated in any Voltaic arrangement, it results from a =
molecular change, brought about in the touching bodies by the adhesiv=
e force which subsists between them.  This theory possesses the advan=
tage, that no new power need be assumed to exist, whereas the contact=
 theory [of Volta] demands the existence of an "electro-motive force,=
" of which we know nothing."  EMF is also mentioned in Atkinson's Gan=
ot (1871 edition), which was to the mid-19th century as Halliday & Re=
snik was to the mid-20th century.
=20
Vickie Frohne
vfrohne@ben.edu

________________________________

=46rom: Forum for Physics Educators on behalf of Ludwik Kowalski
Sent: Mon 2/28/2005 9:57 AM
To: PHYS-L@LISTS.NAU.EDU
Subject: Re: A battery cell



On Friday, Feb 25, 2005, at 23:19 America/New_York, Ludwik Kowalski
wrote:

> P.S.
> I suspect that the term EMF was initially introduced as a
>  real force working on electric charges (to separate them
> against Coulomb forces of attraction). Then somebody
> redefined the word to stand for something that is not a
> force. The name EMF now stands for the "no-load
> difference of potentials," for example between Zn and
> Cu.  Why is this confusing terminology tolerated?

1) It would be useful if somebody with an easy access to very old
physics texts could trace the history of the term "electromotive
force," and share the result with the rest us. For the time being let
me speculate.


*snip*

Ludwik Kowalski
Let the perfect not be the enemy of the good.
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