The story
Named after English physicist and inventor Charles Wheatstone (1802–1875), who devised them.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Wheatstone's rod
Today it means: Either of a pair of flexible rods whose periods of vibration in two planes at right angles are in some exact ratio to one another. When one end of such a rod is fixed, the free end describes through vibration the corresponding Lissajous figure. Full definition →