[Ads-l] Antedating of "Physicist"

[Shapiro, Fred]

This is a noteworthy antedating, as the term antedated is one of the major scientific neologisms of the 19th century and has been regarded as one of the key contributions of the master neologist William Whewell:

physicist (OED, 2., 1840)

1838 _Madras Journal of Literature and Science_ 1 Jan. 168 (19th Century U.K. Periodicals)  The much-wished-for fall of one of these meteors would without doubt furnish the chemist and physicist with the means of explaining certain points quite unknown.

Fred Shapiro

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