Disputatio:Fluxus oneris electrici

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)

Fluxio ?

That source does not support this use of fluxio. Newton and Leibniz did mean rate of change, yes, but in the context of calculus. In English this fluxio = fluxion, derivative. So fluxio electrica = 'electric fluxion', which is not exactly self-evident. Google Books shows several cites for fluxus electricus but only one for fluxio, and it is not in the correct sense. Pantocrator 14:21, 13 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

I'm about to move it, but what of that stuff at the end distinguishing between fluxio and fluxus? I imagine the fluxus there means (Anglice) electric flux, or fluxus campi electrici. Pantocrator 14:39, 13 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

I think I have that done, too. Pantocrator 14:47, 13 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

What a mess you have made of this page. Under what title will we now put the page on electric flux? And when you made your brilliant changes did you take into account that the stuff flowing in electric wires actually flows in the opposite direction of the current??--Rafaelgarcia 16:27, 13 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

This page had to be moved: fluxus is the only attested form, and also the logical one. No, I changed nothing in the scientific explanation.

Electric flux should be, as I stated, fluxus campi electrici. Pantocrator 16:41, 13 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

An electric current for those who understand the physics is different than an electric flow, rather it is the time derivative of the electric charge moving past a point which in latin would be literally "fluxio oneris electrici post locum moventis" or "derivativum respectu tempori oneris electrici post locum moventis" but simply fluxio electrica is fine since there isn't any other important electric fluxion; the concept is is distinguished from electron flow and also electric flow; in fact you can have a electron flow without any electric current. It may be true that electric current has been referred to as a fluxus, by someone, but that is a conceptual error. Similarly, electric power is referred to as vis electrica in the latin literature. Surely, you are not recommending that we name the page for electric power vis electrica, just because there is no other attested form???! Since this is a page about a scientific concept, it should be accurate to that concept. If you add something about electric current being called fluxus you need to state that that is an error.--Rafaelgarcia 17:54, 13 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

It could also be called a "fluxus electricitatis", based on the phrase working for me in english (though much less specific and less scientific). But certainly electric flow is not synonymous with electric current.One is a rate, the other is not. It's like motus and motio, entirely different things.--Rafaelgarcia 17:59, 13 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

I can't see the difference. In English, current and flow mean pretty much the same thing.

You seem to have a rather selective interpretation of VP:NF. Fluxus electricus not only is the attested form in papers as late as 1863, it's also the form that occurs in 20th-century dictionaries. As fluxus means a flow, it is a rough equivalent to the English 'current'.

On the other hand fluxio electrica is not attested anywhere. Fluxio _is not_ a classical word; I believe it was coined by Newton specifically for the calculus concept we now call a derivative, and it has never meant anything else in Latin. To call electric current by a word that means derivative is not done in any other language, and is just silly when a proper term is available. Pantocrator 18:16, 13 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

They don't mean the same in physics. E.g. if electrons in a wire move from left to right, then the cureent is from right to left. If N electrons and N holes move together in unison from left to right, the current is zero. If N electrons and N holes move in opposite directions, the current (fluxio) is twice but the flow (fluctusfluxus) is zero. Moreover the term flux (fluctusfluxus) is already reserved in electromagnetism for an entirely different concept. Fluxio is not a classical word, but it is a technical term in use in physics, which was coined by Newton himself. Rather than invent a new word currens for the concept, we opted to use newton's term to translate it into latin. FluctusFluxus in the sense of electric current is a misconception.--Rafaelgarcia 19:59, 13 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

First, it's fluxus. Fluctus is an entirely different word; the spelling does matter.

You got me on that one. Too much in a hurry.--Rafaelgarcia 20:54, 13 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

Newton invented fluxio is a mathematical concept, not a physical one. Please find one example of fluxio being used to mean flow or current.

I do not understand your distinction between flow and current. I have never heard them used that way in English. We would never do that without specifying electrons or holes. E.g. the flow of electrons is X, the flow of holes is Y, so the current is X+Y; adding together the 'flow' of electrons and holes as you did is physically meaningless, and is never done - it would be like adding temperatures. The issue of the conventional direction used to represent current has nothing to do with the word we choose to use for it.

I agree that we should not bring a new substantive currens into Latin, even though English and the Romance languages use a derivative of it. Fortunately, we know what word was used in Latin - unambiguously, that is fluxus. The point that English uses 'flux' for a related concept should not be relevant; first, there's a good way to say it in Latin, as I explained above, and secondly, that contradicts your argument about not using currens. Latin does not need to depend on the vernacular languages when there already are appropriate Latin phrases in existence. Pantocrator 20:28, 13 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

I don't appreciate your point about fluxio being a mathematical concept; all physical quantities are mathematical quantities. Principia MATHEMATICA philosophiae Naturalis, right?

The basic difference between fluxio and fluxus is that fluxio, by Newton's definition, represents the time rate of change of a thing, whereas the fluxus is the change in the thing. Thus heat Q (units = Joules) is a certain kind of fluxus of energy whereas the rate of heating dQ/dt (units of watts) is a fluxio. For electric current the fluxio is the current itself, the fluxus is the charge that has moved. Or to put it in another way entirely, If two gallons of water flow into a tub in 1 minute, the flow (flux) is two gallons, the rate of flow (fluxio) is 2 gallons per minute.

As to conventions in calculating flow, your point has merit, since it depends on whether you consider the flow of charges or the sum of electric charge, as the relevant quantity, and given that the fluxio is calculated based on the electric charge changing, one should calculate the fluxus the same. On the other hand, a flow in the primary sense of the latin word, implies a motion of stuff, and in this sense what I wrote is correct; for co moving streams of electrons and holes, there is twice as much mass flow, and twice the flow of electric charges, but zero flow of electric charge (the word charge being used here in different senses).

To say fluxus campi electrici is not a fluxus electricus is bizarre. Even if we were to admit (I'm not prepared to) that fluxus electricus means current, a disambig would be needed to disignate all kinds of electric flows..--Rafaelgarcia 21:24, 13 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

Can you cite the passage of Newton where he allegedly differentiates fluxus and fluxio? To me it seems fluxus has both meanings, just as the English flow does. I don't get your point, either, about fluxus being distinguished by being the actual flow. First, holes are not stuff, they're the absence of stuff, and have negative mass. Co-moving electrons and holes would be entirely indistinguishable from no flow of either; this is why only the net current matters. Secondly, in that case electric field flux could not be fluxus, since nothing is actually flowing. When I call fluxio a mathematical concept, I meant that Newton intended it to apply exactly to the mathematical concept, not to any rate in general. Again, fluxio should be understood as the equivalent of 'derivative' in that sense. We could never say in English 'the electric derivative' or 'fluxion', because mathematical and physical terms are not interchanged that way. Pantocrator 22:01, 13 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

A fluxion is not a derivative, it is a time rate of change, so that mathematically it would be calculated as the derivative of the quantity with respect to time. Thus "fluxio electrica" = "electric time rate of change", not entirely specific but neither is "fluxus electricus" ="electric flow". You can do a search of the principia at google books and see what he says about fluxio for yourself. I haven't read the chapter in the principia recently; However, I don't think he specifically distinguishes fluxio and fluxus, but he does use fluxus several times in the qualitative sense of flow; and uses fluxio only in the sense of a time rate of change. Holes are real enough, but if you want a particle that is not merely a solid state exiton, substitute "positron" for hole; the mass of a hole is positive; negative mass is not possible.--Rafaelgarcia 23:23, 13 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

The word fluxio never appears in the text of the Principia (I searched it); this is because Newton was deliberately avoiding calculus in that work and again he only used fluxio in calculus contexts. Fluxus occurs three times: once referring to the tides, once in 'flow of time' and once to mean what you would call fluxio (Lib. 1 Prop. 52 - arcubus HI, HK aequabili fluxu crescentibus). This last shows the he avoided using it in a non-calculus context.

As for holes, only their effective mass is positive. In any case we shouldn't have to debate quantum physics concepts in order to come up with the correct phrase for electric current! Pantocrator 12:31, 14 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

Principia pages you couldn't find--24.183.186.151 12:36, 14 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

Those uses of fluxio I did find; but they are all in the annotations by Leseur and Jacquier, not Newton's text. Pantocrator 12:40, 14 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

Whoever wrote whatever, it was published in his lifetime under his supervision, they are discussion the concept Newton conceived in Latin. So what is your point? Are you being deliberately obtuse? Fluxus may have a normal Latin meaning, but in physics it is important to distinguish a current from a flux. One is a quantitative special case of the other. Regardless of what was called once, why is it that today that in Romance languages they do not call it a flujo electrico (means the same as fluxus electricus), but a corriente electrica (=fluxio electrica, correns electrica)? I ask again, by your logic since electric power is called vis electrica, do we move our page on electric power to this name too??! In day to day latin it would be ok, but not as the title of an encyclopedic article on the physics concept.--130.215.96.89 13:44, 14 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

It was not written in his lifetime or under his supervision. Newton died in 1727, and the Jesuit edition came out in 1742. Further Leseur and Jacquier use fluxio every time in the mathematical sense of 'derivative'. It never means fluxus.

OK you got me on the date, but fluxio is not just a "derivative": it is a "derivative with respect to time". Conceptually there is a difference. When he coined fluxio, Newton apparently was seeking a term which denoted a flow in time as opposed to a flow in space, because that is precisely the meaning he got.--Rafaelgarcia 18:24, 14 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

Current/courant/corrente/corriente has a basic meaning of 'flow', do they not? This corresponds to fluxus, and also other Latin words, though only fluxus is attested. Your example of vis electrica is not parallel; vis has a definite meaning in physics, that of force, and we can't allow force and power to use the same word; in any case, I doubt there are any uses of vis electrica to mean specifically power in today's scientific sense. Pantocrator 14:32, 14 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

It is precisely my point: flow/flux and current mean different things in physics, whether in spanish, english, russian or chinese. --Rafaelgarcia 18:24, 14 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

Re: "Current/courant/corrente/corriente has a basic meaning of 'flow', do they not?"—No, they do not, unless they reflect some Latin verb other than the obvious one: currere 'to run, to hasten'; hence 'to sail, to pass, to march'. IacobusAmor 14:50, 14 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

I mean the meaning in use, not necessarily the etymological meaning, which is 'running' with its obvious connection to flow. Pantocrator 15:14, 14 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

According to my Spanish-English dictionary, the basic sense of the noun corriente is 'current, flow, stream' and the secondary sense is '[electrical] current'. IacobusAmor 15:25, 14 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

As a native spanish speaker I can attest that for me the "basic" meaning of the term corriente is "a motion of water which pushes against you and other objects that are in the water but is otherwise invisible", the second meaning is "electric current". The two "physics" definitions given by RAE are 1. the physics definition, rate of charge flow past a point in a wire, and 2. the phenomenon or actuality of electrical charges moving in a wire. (my interpretation/translation (they actually define it in terms of electricity which from context I take to mean electric charge)). The "basic" meaning of flujo is any kind of flowing or flow. The RAE does not attempt to give any physics definition for flujo.

The distinction between current/fluxio and flow/fluxus is independent of language: note in physics scientific english term flow is used precisely the narrow sense of amount of stuff moving past the point not the rate. Thus the electric current is the rate of charge flow; not the charge flow, not the electric flow. Nor is it the charge flux or the electric flux. And yes, when I was looking for the latin term for electric power, the only term I actually found was vis electrica. Since that was over a year ago, I don't remember where. Maybe google will help.--Rafaelgarcia 18:24, 14 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

I've looked on google and can't find 'vis electrica' meaning power.

I am a native English speaker and I can tell you that you are not correct about the words flow and current. 'Flow' can and often does mean 'flow rate', while 'current' is very rare in that sense outside of electricity; while in electricity, 'flow' is almost never used except in defining current. The primary use of 'current' in English is that relating to water, just as it is in Spanish. But there, the units do not support your analysis: 'current' in bodies of water is a velocity generally, while a rate is likely to be called 'flow'. Ex.: the current here is over 1 knot, the flow in the pipe is 4 cubic feet per second. It is the latter, 'flow', that corresponds to electric current. Pantocrator 20:01, 14 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

Ainsworth provides definition of fluxio: "flowing or running of liquids" (if that isn't the same as current what is??)

Medical dictionaries define fluxus and fluxio in medical context supporting my interpretation above of the meaning of fluxio and fluxus: one and another

Newton's Method of Fluxions (search for "definition" to see his definition fluxio= "velocity of increase or decrease of flowing quantity")

--Rafaelgarcia 19:20, 14 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

Well, that's surprising. Fluxio is not in the OLD, and our online L&S gives both of those classical citations in Ainsworth as 'false readings'. Even if fluxio at some time became used in medical Latin, it was (apparently) always less common than fluxus and synonymous with it, or differing in ways not relevant here; my points stand.

I am of course aware of Newton's use of fluxio in calculus; that's a good reason to avoid it in non-calculus meanings. Pantocrator 20:01, 14 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

L&S does not discuss medaevel or later latin. I can only assume you are being deliberately evasive.--Rafaelgarcia 10:56, 15 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

I am not; I am responding to your use of Ainsworth, showing that the two citations in Ainsworth are not supported by OLD or L&S, which I am sure you would agree are more reliable dictionaries; and thus there is still no classical support for fluxio.

I now have to acknowledge that there was some use of fluxio in medical Latin, as a near-synonym for fluxus, but in any case they were not differentiated as you keep suggesting they should be. I shall try to find any more information about why Newton chose the term fluxio, but I do not think I will be successful; I doubt that he got it from medicine. Pantocrator 11:19, 15 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

And in mathematical physics. This distinction between math and physics is a modern one made up by mathematicians. Moreover the book above explains why Newton used the term. A fluxion is the rate of change of a fluent which is any flowing quantity. I.e. a fluxion is defined as "the rate of flow" which quantitatively distinguishes it from a simple flux or flow. A rate of flow is different from flow. It is as simple as that.--Rafaelgarcia 11:25, 15 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

Of course the rate of flow and the total quantity of flow are different physical quantities. That does not mean they can't be described by the same word, such as 'flow' in English or fluxus in Latin. It's as simple as this: that there is no sufficient cause to violate VP:NF in this case and depart from the term actually used in Latin. Pantocrator 11:31, 15 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

There is absolute no NF violation here. Fluxio is amply attested in the sense of current. Perhaps not as electric current directly, but the fact that the two concepts of current and flow need to be distinguished and attested sources provide us with the terms to distinguish them. So what is the problem? No one is proposing to remove fluxus as a possible translation, it is just not sufficiently precise to render electric current in the scientific sense because there is more than one kind of electric flow and secondly because rate of flow and flow mean different things. Conceptual clarity is a must and the demonstrated need to distinguish these things is what drove newton to give a precise definition to this term. On top of everything else, in the case of electric current the actual flowing of charge is usually in the opposite direction to the current.--Rafaelgarcia 12:35, 15 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

I challenged you to show any use of fluxio meaning 'current' or 'flow'. You have done so only by finding a couple medical definitions of fluxio as an alternative to fluxus for various diseases; and also pointing out (as I acknowledged at the start) that fluxio was used as a technical term of calculus. You have not shown any physical distinction made between fluxus and fluxio in the sense you want.

Newton invented the word fluxio in the mathemetical sense by 1670; electric current was first talked about a century or more later, if there had been such a distinction as you perceive, wouldn't scientists have used fluxio electrica? No, they did not, for two reasons: first, there was no history of distinguishing between fluxus and fluxio in any physical sense; and secondly, fluxio was so much associated with calculus that fluxio electrica for current would have sounded ridiculous, just like its English equivalent 'electric derivative'. Pantocrator 13:04, 15 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

Concepts do have technical meanings, but mathematical and physical terms are completely overlapping, especially as regards calculus, which was invented specifically for describing physical phenomena. (Moreover the fact that the physics concept was then used for describing other phenomena in medicine specifically contradicts your claim that it is "only" a maths concept) What's more can you explain exactly what is the difference between a quantitative concept such as fluxio having a physical sense and a mathematical sense? The whole language of fluens and fluxio beg for physical interpretation; they are only artificially applied to phenomena otherwise. Fluxio electrica translated simply means "the electric rate of flow" as opposed to Fluxus electricus which translated means "the electric flow". Which better describes the running of electrons down a wire? Both debatably are equally good. Which describes an electric current in the specific quantitative sense defined in modern physics I=dQ/dt as opposed to the electric flux? Obviously fluxio is the better, nay obvious, choice for describing I.--Rafaelgarcia 14:32, 15 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

In the idea of electric current, I would argue that the qualitative sense, not the quantitative one, is primary, based on the meaning of the English word 'current'. When measuring it, we of course use units of charge per unit time (rate of flow) because the quantity of flow, as well as being less useful, is already measured by the unit of charge. Pantocrator 14:50, 15 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

Again you seem to have not observed what has been written, a fluxion as defined by Newton is NOT the same as derivative; rather it defined as the velocity of increase or decrease of a flowing quantity, i.e. the rate of flow. This is the reason that Newton's terminology was abandoned in favor of Liebnitz's derivative, etc. As to why "...first talked about a century or more later, if there had been such a distinction as you perceive, wouldn't scientists have used fluxio electrica?", who knows but I suspect that currens was the term eventually adopted for current, given that its decendent has been used in every romance language for current. On the other hand, I could not find a credible attestation for currens, so fluxio was used. If you want currens electricus I would say fine, but I was trying to abide by NF.--Rafaelgarcia 14:42, 15 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

Newton's 'flowing quantities' were really MOVING quantities in his geometric conception of calculus; he did not primarily mean 'flow' in the usual sense. And that is what a derivative is in calculus; the reason the term 'derivative' replaced 'fluxion' had more to do with the conflict between the Newtonian and Leibnitzian systems of calculus. You say using currens would violate NF; I agree, but fluxio has exactly the same problem since neither is attested, only fluxus. Pantocrator 14:50, 15 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

Flowing quantities are moving quantities, and all moving quantities *figuratively speaking* do flow, but not literally speaking. The differential defined by leibnitz and the derivative later defined by others is a different thing, by each one being more abstract than the prior concept. It is a beautiful example of how abstract ideas evolve and progress.

Fluxio in the sense of current is certainly perfectly well attested in the sense of both "current" per se and "rate of flow" as the links above provide show clearly. The regard you personally show to those linked sources is debatable, but the fact that they specifically attest those senses is there for any man of unclouded reason to see. --Rafaelgarcia 16:26, 15 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

There is a difference between flowing (in the sense you intend) and moving; the former refers to a continuous substance and the latter to a point. Newton's first definition of the word, I have transcribed from the original Latin of De Methodo Fluxionem as follows:

Quantitas autem quas ut sensim crescentes indefinite considero, quo distinguam ab aliis quantitatibus quae in aequationibus quibuscunque pro determinatis et cognitis habendae sunt ac initialibus literis a, b, c, &c. designatur, posthac denominabo fluentes, ac designabo finalibus literis v, x, y, et z. Et celeritates quibus singulae a motu generante fluunt et augentur (quos possim fluxiones vel simpliciter celeritates vocitare) designabo literis l, m, n, et r. Nempe pro celeritate quantitatis v ponam l et sic pro celeritatibus aliarum quantitatam x, y, et z ponam m, n, et r respective. His praemissis e vestigio rem aggredior, imprimis duorum jam modo propositorum problematum solutionem exhibiturus.

Newton clearly defines a fluxion as a celeritas; of course this is only conceptual for a method of pure mathematics, but it shows that he was not thinking of fluxio in your sense. Neglecting the dubious Ainsworth citations and the medical uses that cannot mean 'rate of flow', you have shown no uses other than the calculus concept, which as I have shown does not support your meaning. Pantocrator 00:27, 16 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

One concept, one name

Re: "Of course the rate of flow and the total quantity of flow are different physical quantities. That does not mean they can't be described by the same word." In principle, whenever possible, each unique thing should be named by a unique term (or as Rafael says, "Conceptual clarity is a must"). No less a philosopher than Ioannes Lockius lays down the law: "In all Discourses, wherein one Man pretends to instruct or convince another, he should use the same Word constantly in the same sense" (An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Peter H. Nidditch, 1975, p. 523, italics original). IacobusAmor 14:28, 15 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

Precisely my point. The difference in meaning between the two concepts of current and flow is a huge thing in physics. Compare the huge difference in meaning between momentum (motus) and motion (motio); both latin terms mean motion, but in Newtons Principia Mathematica gives a specific meaning to motus as the product of the mass and velocity; he never distinguishes motio from motus, but he uses motio in many senses but motus only in one quantitative sense. He does this because being precise about the quantitative concept of motus is hugely important.--Rafaelgarcia 14:49, 15 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

Wrong again. I searched the Principia again, and found Newton did not use motio at all, against hundreds of occurences of motus. There is exactly one motio found in the notes of Leseur and Jacquier. Pantocrator 14:58, 15 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you are seizing upon....So are you now saying motion and momentum are not to be distinguished, just because he does not specifically distinguish them in the principia?!--Rafaelgarcia 16:18, 15 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

What I am seizing on is that you were grossly careless at best when you talked about Newton's use of fluxio and motio in the Principia.

The basic Latin word for movement or motion has always been motus. If we need a word that unambiguously meant 'momentum' in contrast to motion, we can use momentum or the more traditional quantitas motus; both have ample support in the modern languages as I'm sure you're aware - but most of the time plain motus will do, as on our Leges motus page. Pantocrator 00:07, 16 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

It's been over a year since I worked on that page and looked at those references, my memory isn't perfect and I was speaking from memory. I don't think my care or carelessness in speaking is the relavent issue. The issue the truth of the matter at hand.

To whit, is it possible to admit that the word fluxus in "fluxus campi electrici" and the word "fluxus" in "fluxus electricus" (on the present version of the page) refer to 2 distinct incommensurable concepts? Is it possible to admit that, in the basic sense of flow held by fluxus, electron flow in a wire is also as readily referred to as a fluxus electricus? Is is possible to admit that the physical concept of current as I=dQ/dt (which is distinct from electron flow or charge flow) is essentially a mathematical definition of a quantity that is distinct from electron flow? How do you know that in that reference you provided, the author wasn't referring to the flow of charge as distinguished from the current?--Rafaelgarcia 00:36, 16 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

No, as fluxus campi electrici and fluxus electricus do refer to the same concept by fluxus; only, in the first, the flow is only metaphorical as a campus electrici doesn't go anywhere. Still, it is a 'rate of flow' of the potential, which I presume is the origin of the word.

Electron flow in a wire is a type of fluxus electricus, yes. But if you need to specify exactly electron flow, say fluxus (or flumen, etc.) electronis, for example. I don't think anyone would distinguish flow of charge from current before the discovery of the electron, which all the sources are. Pantocrator 02:55, 16 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

Well that's a begining. No the electric flux is not a rate of flow of potential in any sense; a field is a rate of flow in the sense of being a derivative of a potential; a flux is not. There is no rate involved at all. In fact it is the reverse. See the section of the article that you did not change for the definitions of current (fluctio) and flux(fluxus). One is a derivative the other is an integral!

So you grant the point that the source you cited in favor of fluxus being current may have instead been referring to an flow of charge rather than a electric current? Does he define precisely that fluxus electricus is dQ/dt (i.e. a rate of flow as opposed to a flow)? Or more likely is he following Franklin in incorrectly believing that electricity is a kind of fluid which can have an excess or deficiency in different objects and thus flows like water between objects? --24.183.186.151 03:58, 16 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

The flux of the electric field is the 'rate of flow' integrated over an area just like the current is the rate of flow integrated over the cross-section of the wire! Think about it!

Also, just because 19c. physicists may not have understood the true nature of electric current does not mean they could not describe it accurately. Nor does it mean anything is wrong with their terminology. We didn't abolish the word 'gravity' after Einstein's general theory of relativity, after all. Pantocrator 04:08, 16 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

No the electric field does not have a velocity in it. There is no time unit involved. It is not a rate. The flux outwards from a sphere surrounding a point charge is proportional to the charge inside. What quantity of stuff is increasing decreasing inside a the sphere? Everything is static. The flux is constant, the electric field is constant, and the charge is constant. Nothing changes. So there is no rate anywhere to be seen.

None of these things by contrast is true for a current. It is a flow but it is a flow of current density, but that is only because the current density itself is a rate (i.e. fluxion, or derivative with respect to time). If the flux of current density out of a sphere is positive, something does change per unit time in the sphere, namely the charge.

The point is that the author is likely referring to the flow of current in the wire, and that is the only electric flow that he was aware of at the time. Today we know there are many electric flows and the essence of what a current IS however is not that it is a flow, but that it is a time rate of change of charge moving past a point. His fluxus electricus is rather a fluxus electricitatis or fluxus currentis electrici or fluxus fluminis electrici, or a fluxus fluxionis electricae, etc, depending on your choice of words. The important thing is that in these phrases, fluxus keeps the same sense of flow as in fluxus campi electrici.

I think the thing to do is have a discretiva page on fluxus electricus, and from there one of the items is a link to a page on current, one on charge flow (linked to the page on current), another on electric flux. However, we have to settle on a term for current, a concept which is distinct from flow. I think fluxio electricae is fine given the clear attestations both in physical sense of flowing liquids, the etymology, and its use as a technical term specifically meaning a "rate of flow" by Newton.--24.183.186.151 09:55, 16 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

I will tediously respond to your points. First, I acknowledged myself just above that the electric field is not a real flow, it's only conceptualised as one - where do you think the term 'flux' came from?? The parallelism between current and flux of a field is exact when that is granted.

Secondly, I already responded to your point about charge flow vs. current. English Wikipedia does not have different articles on them, as there is no need. They are the same concept; it is only that the flow of electrons or holes or ions, etc. is a more specialised that arose when the microscopic nature of the thing was understood. In fact, let's look at the first sentence of the English article:

Electric current means, depending on the context, a flow of electric charge (a phenomenon) or the rate of flow of electric charge (a quantity).

explicitly stating that flow and flow rate can be expressed using the same word: 'current' in English, fluxus in Latin. I disagree with your definition of the "essence" of current for the same reason. In a wire carrying a constant DC current, nothing is changing - yet we say a current exists, as there is a flow of electricity. Yes, fluxus electricus may be more accurately fluxus electricitatis, but we can use the shorter form in Latin, just as we normally say in English 'electric current' and not 'current of electricity'.

Last, no such clear attestations have been produced and you must know that if you have followed the discussion. As I explained above, including quoting his original Latin, Newton did not mean rate of flow in the liquid sense when he coined 'fluxion', he only meant rate of 'flow' of a mathematical quantity. Pantocrator 12:36, 16 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

Like most english wiki articles, the beginning is a mess as it tries to explain how different people use the term electric current, ranging from consumers of electric energy to scientists. They are actually two distinct concepts, a popular one based on a vague notion of flow of a fluid and a scientific one based on a definition I=dQ/dt. I agree they do not deserve a separate page, but the concepts should be clearly distinguished.

The equivalent evidently in latin would be to say the fluxus electricus is electric flow, current, or electric flux, depending on context. Which is really a discretiva rather than a definition of a single concept.

Fluxus electricitatis is ok but only because electricitas is also ambiguous, electricity being a vague concept in all languages, with many contradictory defintions, emcompanssing even current, encluding in english.

My objection to the page fluxus electricus being principally about electric current is based on the fact that flow in physics is different than current. And that term fluxus electricus equivalently means the same as electric flux. If flow meant the same as current, them why do all languages distinguish them with different words? Why isn't the english term for current electric flow? Why isn't the spanish term current flujo electrico? In fact, is there any Romance language that calls the electric current electric flow?... There is a reason. The reason is semantic. The two phenomena are conceptually distinct. I think therefore a discretiva page is necessary to distinguish a page on current versus a page on flux, both phenomena--to use your term--being equivalently described by the term fluxus electricus in latin.

I think the latin page on current should be entitled fluxio electrica for the reaasons stated above (Newton's explicit authority isn't necessary since there are plenty of sources indicating fluxio is "the running of a fluid"). Such a page e.g. should include an explanation of how fluxus electricus can equivalently be used for fluxus oneris electrici to state the phenomenon of flow of electricity as distinguised from the concept of electric current.

--24.183.186.151 17:06, 16 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

This whole argument has been an exercise in moving the goalposts: when I discredit one after another of your arguments, you keep coming back with more. The fundamental truth is that we should not be debating making a new phrase when there already is an adequate one in Latin.

Further, Latin is not English, Spanish, or any other modern language. It follows its own rules. It is a characteristic of Latin that it has fewer distinct words than modern languages in many areas and uses words with a broader meaning. For example, American English has three verbs, 'press', 'pressure' and 'pressurise', that correspond to the same basic Latin verb premere; would you argue that we need to create new distinctions so as to have three Latin verbs corresponding exactly to 'press', 'pressure', 'pressurise'? In any case, your distinction between 'flow' and 'current' is very weak; as I have already explained, we tend to use 'current' only in electricity (and rare physical analogues), where 'flow' would generally be recognised as an informal synonym for 'current', and for water currents which are typically thought of as velocities rather than rates, while 'flow' is used in other contexts meaning both 'amount' and 'rate' as well as the qualitative phenomenon - in other words, the distinction is more a matter of subject than of basic meaning.

If you want to have absolutely logical word formation, go learn Esperanto. And why do we learn Latin rather than Esperanto or a similar constructed language? It can only be the language's long history, in Latin's case specifically of being the common language of the Western world, and a necessary part of that tradition is being very conservative linguistically and not adopting new formations unless there's a clear need.

The meaning of a word or phrase in a living language is ultimately determined by how people use it. So if the English Wikipedia is describing use in its definition of electric current (and it is), then that is what the word means, and both senses are equally physical. The definition of a concept is not necessarily the unit used to measure it numerically; indeed, a good parallel can be found in the word 'mass' which means both the concept and its measure (even in physics). I have not used the word 'phenomena' in this discussion, and I don't see its relevance; I agree that a discretiva (or a headnote, but _this_ wiki seems to prefer discretivae exclusively) will ultimately be needed, but not now.

Finally, while there may be sources defining fluxio as 'the running of a fluid' (and the word certainly is valid as it is formed using a productive Latin suffix), they do not distinguish it from fluxus in that sense, and not only was fluxio a late invention, it was always much less common. Your argument that we must adopt fluxio for current to avoid using the same word as for flow is exactly the same as an argument that in English we must change to calling the color of an orange 'orangeness' to avoid using the same word as for the fruit. And that is absurd. There is no reason to invent a new and confusing distinction, which besides does not even exist in the modern languages. Pantocrator 00:03, 17 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

If my arguments have been changing it is only because I am trying to get a point across that apparently you are unable to grasp, whereas it is entirely evident to me. If you think bickering is tedious, imagine what it must be for a phD physicist who has been teaching physics from graduate level to undergraduate for the last 10 years. I think at some point one has to draw the line as to how hard one tries to convince another about something, and perhaps I've reached mine. I'll leave it to my fellow Vicipaedians to do as they see fit on the subject.Best--24.183.186.151 01:23, 17 Februarii 2010 (UTC)

Revived discussion copied from Taberna

Dear friends how could we translate Electric current, according to Castiglioni, Aloisius; Mariotti, Scaevola. Vocabolario della lingua latina, latino-italiano, italiano-latino. Quarta editio a Petro Georgio Parroni curata (Taurini, 2007). the word current does not exist in Latin, see the new page Circuitus electricus--Helveticus montanus 06:46, 17 Iulii 2011 (UTC)

Pitkäranta gives Fluentum electricum (though we seem to have the article under the name of Fluxus oneris electrici). Ciaò, Neander 21:18, 17 Iulii 2011 (UTC)

This follows a very long discussion at "Disputatio:Fluxus oneris electrici". Egger is cited there, though the page is not currently at either of the forms suggested by Egger. Anyway, I am copying these remarks to that page. Please continue there.

My view is that we should adopt one of the forms given by Egger ("fluxus electricus", "fluor electricus", see above) or Pitkäranta ("Fluentum electricum"), but I have no opinion as to which is best. Any further views? Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 17:35, 18 Iulii 2011 (UTC)