History of the term "square-cube law?"

[The Bill]

I'm familiar with the history of the concept of the square-cube law going back to Galileo, Watt, etc. However, I don't know the origin and history of the language we use to talk about it today. When was the specific term "square-cube law" coined? When did that name become commonly used/understood in the scientific communities where it is useful?

 

[fresh_42]

I have never heard of it and there is no German Wikipedia page either. The French call it scale effect. Adding both leads me to the assumption that it is not of mathematical origin. My first thought was Kepler, but this is something else. My second thought was: typical engineer's language.

 

[davenn]

When was the specific term "square-cube law"

I have never heard of it either ??

are you sure you didn't mean the inverse square law ?

 

[Dr. Courtney]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square–cube_law

 

[The Bill]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square–cube_law

I already read that. I'm looking for information on the history of how the term has been used in each field of science. That article is about the law itself, not the terminology and the specific level of detail I'm asking about the history of that terminology.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

https://www.google.com/search?q=squ...r:1,cd_min:1/1/1900,cd_max:12/31/1920&tbm=bks

 

[sysprog]

The Montgolfier brothers and their balloons come to mind. The Wikipedia article that you already read includes a remark about aerostats:

Aerostats generally benefit from the square–cube law. As the radius ($r$) of a balloon is increased, the cost in surface area increases quadratically ( $r^2$), but the lift generated from volume increases cubically ( $r^3$).​

 

[anorlunda]

I find that this site https://www.waywordradio.org/ is very skillful in their ability to track down the origins of words and phrases.

 

[Redbelly98]

While I never heard of the square-cube law either, I am familiar with the related term "surface to volume ratio". Googling that might also produce useful information.