Dictionary of Scientific Effects: EFFECTS (Dictionaries of Science)

The Dictionary of Scientific Effects is an intent to compile the language of art used for various known rules or laws applied to a broad category of topics including Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Psychology. In creating this dictionary, several sources have been consulted such as encyclopedias, dictionaries, books, indexes and journal articles. There is no single source containing the breadth of coverage of all Effects listed in this work. The bibliography lists the many resources consulted. The Dictionary is intended as an ongoing project in order to add new Effects in future editions. Many were excerpts of articles, summaries from reference sources or obtained from unique Internet sources or available content definitions from patent files. The Dictionary of Scientific Effects was prepared to provide information about basic fundamental properties, systems, actions or phenomena of terms in common use including eponyms, among various fields of study. The Dictionary of Scientific Effects provides a brief description of the individual, variety of definitions applied to the effect, alternate names used to describe the effect in a See Also attachment to the name and definitions of over 2000 terms, both current and historical. About 85 percent of these terms cannot be found in any other source such as dictionaries, encyclopedias or other collected printed or electronic works. The Dictionary of Scientific Effects does not attempt nor intend to exhaust the entire spectrum of meaning and potential intention with historical connections for each effect.The Effects included may be factual and historical. Some eponyms use the term 'Law', e.g. Newton's Law, are also described as Newton's Effect. Effects are included regardless of their frequency of use or manner how they were created. Occasionally, names are in a formative or a transitional stage of development giving legitimate excuses for reasons why different compilers assign different names to the same or very similar Effects. The inclusion of a name as part of a term in no way depends on how well the person is known at the time, nor does it mean this person will become well known in the future due to the effect to which they may be affiliated or associated. Many of the Effects include names of famous persons, a very large number include the names of people who were modest practitioners of their trades and who lived and died in anonymity. Such people could not be included in professional and membership directories, biographical listings nor national newspaper obituaries. Biographical information, as explained earlier, for many of the Effects, is incomplete. Selection was made to include and focus on the effect, not the individual for whom it was named. An eponym is both the person after whom something is named and which is named after the person. Names may appear in multiple forms and they are included with reference to alternate forms including spelling variations. The association of names to specific individuals is often difficult since the names are coined not by the person who first described the concept but by someone else, often many years later. The Dictionary of Scientific Effects is arranged in alphabetic order with cross references to alternate terms applied. The listing depends on the manner to which the effect was described. For example, the term effect of XYZ and its variation of XYZ Effect will both be listed. Effects containing more than one name are followed by the biographies of the owners of the names in the order to which they appear. There is no separate section where the biographical information is listed which is a misgiving but the focus of the intent for this publication was to make available the Effects in one collected work. Further misgivings are expressed for not including the entire bibliographical reference for the Dictionary of Scientific Effects included but this would make the volume too cumbersome to produce.