[Alteration of STATIC sb., after names of sciences in -ICS.] Originally, the science relating to weight and its mechanical effects, and to the conditions of equilibrium as resulting from the distribution of weight. In modern use, the branch of physical science concerned with the action of forces in producing equilibrium or relative rest, in contradistinction to Dynamics in its older sense as the science of the action of forces in producing motion. In recent terminology, Statics and Kinetics (= the older Dynamics) are the two branches of Dynamics.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Staticks (Gr.) the science of weights and measures; a species of Mechanicks.
1664. Butler, Hud., II. iii. 206. He had been long t’wards Mathematicks, Opticks, Philosophy, and Staticks.
1681. Colvil, Whigs Supplic. (1751), 83. Like some attempting tricks in Statics, Not vers’d in Euclid’s mathematics.
1691. Norris, Pract. Disc., 24. There is more Force and Vertue in one Single Now, than in many Hereafters. ’Tis not in the Moral as in Physical Statics;… here the nearer the Weight, the stronger is its Power.
1692. Bentley, Confut. Atheism, II. 11. Now this is a Catholick Rule of Statics; That if any Body be bulk for bulk heavier than a Fluid, it will sink to the bottom of that Fluid.
1700. Moxon, Math. Dict., Staticks, the Science of Weights and Measures, a Species of the Mechanicks, shewing the Properties and Motion of Ponderosity, or Heaviness and Lightness of Bodies, &c.
1837. Whewell, Hist. Induct. Sci. (1857), I. 73. The mechanical doctrine of Equilibrium, is Statics.
1867. Thomson & Tait, Treat. Nat. Philos., I. § 454. 342. We naturally divide Statics into two parts—the equilibrium of a particle, and that of a rigid or elastic body or system of particles.
1882. G. M. Minchin, Unipl. Kinemat., 201. There are methods in Statics for calculating the resultant attraction of matter, or its components, without finding the potential.
b. with qualifying word.
Chemical statics, the statics of chemical bodies or systems of bodies. Graphic(al statics, the investigation of statical problems by means of drawings made to scale. † Vegetable statics, the study of the laws of the circulation of the fluids in plants.
1727. S. Hales (title), Statical Essays: containing Vegetable Staticks; Or, An Account of some Statical Experiments on the Sap in Vegetables.
1780. M. Cutler, in Life, Jrnls. & Corr. (1888), I. 80. The Doctor’s discoveries in his vegetable statics … must be very useful in the culture and improvement of vegetables and fruit trees.
1876. Maxwell, Sci. Papers (1890), II. 492. On Bow’s method of drawing diagrams in graphical statics.
1910. Encycl. Brit., VIII. 147/2. The most useful of these applications, collectively termed Graphic Statics, relates to the equilibrium of plane framed structures.
c. transf.; esp. in social statics (see quots. 1843, 1851).
1843. Mill, Logic, VI. x. § 5. [With Comte] Social Dynamics is the theory of Society considered in a state of progressive movement; while Social Statics is the theory of the consensus already spoken of as existing among the different parts of the social organism.
1845. Graves, Roman Law, in Encycl. Metrop., II. 768/1. Gaius … treats rather of the dynamics than of the statics of law—rather of those events or forces by which classes of rights begin, are modified or terminate, than of those rights and duties which accompany a given stationary legal relation.
1851. Spencer, Soc. Stat., xxx. § 1. Social philosophy may be aptly divided … into statics and dynamics; the first treating of the equilibrium of a perfect society, the second of the forces by which society is advanced towards perfection.
