The Word "Aerosol"

The word Aerosol is universally known. There are several societies and journals with the word incorporated into the name. Many graduate schools teach an Aerosol Science course. Any number of books utilizes the word in their title. Individuals proclaim themselves to be Aerosol Scientists. Almost no one can site the origin of the word!

Aerosol was a word coined by W.E. Gibbs in 1924 in his book titled Clouds and Smokes.
He states on page 8 that it describes a disperse system, in air and is analogous to the accepted term “hydrosol” denoting a disperse system in water.

Subsequent to our presentation of this seminal information, Trevor Ogden, the learned Editor of the Annals of Occupational Hygiene, pointed out that the word was coined a year earlier in a paper by Robert Whytlaw-Gray et al. as a footnote at the bottom of the first page.

Title:	Smokes: Part I. A Study of their Behaviour and a Method of Determining the Number of Particles they Contain
Authors:	Whytlaw-Gray, R.; Speakman, J. B.; Campbell, J. H. P.
Publication:	Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Containing Papers of a Mathematical and Physical Character, Volume 102, Issue 718, pp. 600-615
Publication Date:	02/1923
Origin:	JSTOR
Bibliographic Code:	1923RSPSA.102..600W

The full text may be found at:
http://journals.royalsociety.org/content/j162n77831234x81/fulltext.pdf

This is a very important paper in that it contains the famous photomicrographs of a coagulating aerosol.

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