aeolotropic

See also: æolotropic

English

From aeolo- +‎ -tropic.

aeolotropic (not comparable)

(physics) Pertaining to aeolotropy; of a body or substance, having physical properties (e.g., electric conductivity, refractive index) that depend on the direction in which they are measured.
- 1867, W. Thomson, P. G. Tait, Treatise on Natural Philosophy vol. 1, page 518:
  An individual body […] may be isotropic in one quality or class of qualities, but æolotropic in others.
- 1911, Encyclopædia Britannica 11th edn. vol. 18, page 627:
  On extending his [Mitscherlich's] inquiry to other aelotropic crystals he observed a similar variation, and was thus led, in 1825, to the discovery that aelotropic crystals, when heated, expand unequally in the direction of dissimilar axes.

James A. H. Murray et al., editors (1884–1928), “Aeolotropic”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC.