Abstract
ALTHOUGH it appears from earlier letters1 that no definite agreement can be reached about the pronunciation of Joule, the following points may be of interest concerning a possible origin of the name and of its different pronunciations. According to A. Schuster and A. E. Shipley2: “Joule's name appears to be derived from Youlgrave, a village in Derbyshire where his family originally resided”. It would, perhaps, be more correct to say that both Joule and Youlgrave had a common origin, the former in the English or Scandinavian personal name Iola the place-name then meaning Iola's grove. A. Mawor and F. M. Stenton3 give this meaning, though E. Ekwall4 suggests instead, yellow grove.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 51 print issues and online access
$199.00 per year
only $3.90 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on SpringerLink
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
NATURE, 152, 354, 418, 479 (1943).
Schuster, A., and Shipley, A. E., "Britain's Heritage of Science" (second edit., 1920), 40.
Mawer, A., and Stenton, F. M., "Introduction to the Survey of English Place-Names" (1924), 104.
Ekwall, E., "The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names" (1936).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
WEBB, K. James Prescott Joule and the Unit of Energy. Nature 152, 602 (1943). https://doi.org/10.1038/152602a0
Issue date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/152602a0
