What caused the shift from calling things like rheostats and condensers to resistors and capacitors, or the move from cycles to Hertz?
It seemed to just pop up out of nowhere, seeing as the previous terms seemed fine, and are in use for some things today (like rheostat brakes, or condenser microphones).
“Resistor” usually implies a device with a fixed resistance value. A rheostat is a device with variable resistance. The two terms are not synonymous.
As for condenser and capacitor, Wikipedia has an interesting tidbit:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor
That’s funny, in Swedish we say “kondensator”, in effect, condenser.
Same in French, “condensateur”
On dit aussi beaucoup une capacité ou simplement une capa Pas sur si c’est un angliscisme ou une norme qui évolué
We also say capacité, or simply capa, I am not sure whether it’s borrowed from English, or whether the official terminology evolved
Je dis “capaciteur” parfois mais je suis pas mal certain que c’est un anglicisme effectivement
In Spain we say “condensador”
Yes, it’s condenser too
Yes, most of people say condensador but I between engineers/technicians in Hispanic America we use both terms depending on the system (condensador for high voltage and capacitor for low voltage).
In german too, but “Kapazitor” is usus too.
edit: though googling it, Wikipedia says “Kondensator(Elektrotechnik)”
So, that’s where Finnish borrowed that word… like so many other words too. Perhaps calling it borrowing isn’t entirely fair, since this thing has been going on for so long and it’s been really extensive. Sort of like the way the British Museum “borrowed” a significant part of their collection from somewhere else.
I know, over here we would call that robbery at knife point ;)
Or viking style pillage and plunder accompanied by burning the monastery and stabbing the priest.
they had it coming!
Exactly the same in Polish (same spelling).