stat-a prefix attached to the name of electrical units to indicate the corresponding electrostatic unit, as statcoulomb.
[ 1903A. E. Kennelly in Trans. Amer. Inst. Electr. Engin. XXII. 534In a comprehensive system of electromagnetic terminology, the electric C.G.S. units should also be christened... They might be denoted by the prefix abstat. Thus the C.G.S. electric unit of e.m. f. would be the abstatvolt.]
1920 Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc. LIX. 365Be is the electric flux density in ‘statgausses’.
1925 W. H. Timbie Elements of Electricity xvi. 584A statcoulomb is a small unit of charge, one coulomb being equal to 3 × 109 statcoulombs.
1932 S. S. Attwood Electric & Magnetic Fields i. 19The unit of potential is an erg per statcoulomb and is called the statvolt in the electrostatic C.G.S. system.
1937 H. L. Curtis Electr. Measurements ii. 11The prefixes ab and abstat were proposed by Kennelly... The latter has generally been shortened to stat. No one of the proposed names has been adopted by any international organization.
1939 J. B. Whitehead Electricity & Magnetism vi. 62The name of the electrostatic unit of capacitance is the statfarad. One farad is equal to 9 × 1011 statfarads.
1958 Condon & Odishaw Handbk. Physics a–9/2The cgs unit of charge is called the esu or the statcoulomb. It is the unit defined by using dynes of force and cm of distance and adopting 4πε0 = 1. The corresponding unit of current is called the statampere, defined as the flow of one statcoulomb per second.
Ibid. a–11/1,1 statohm = c2/109 ohms..with c= 2·997930 × 1010 cm/sec.
1963 Jerrard & McNeill Dict. Sci. Units 12In recent years the prefix stat has sometimes been used to denote electrostatic units, thus 1 stat volt = 300 practical volts, 1 stat ampere= (1/3) × 10-9 ampere. This prefix is an abbreviation for abstat which was proposed for electrostatic units at the same time as ab was suggested for electromagnetic units.
ORIGIN: from static
stat-
combining form
Etymology: electrostatic
: electrostatic
< statampere >
— in names of electrical units
< statampere >
— in names of electrical units