Young's modulus, which is also known as the elastic modulus, is a mechanical property of linear elastic solid materials. It defines the relationship between stress (force per unit area) and strain (proportional deformation) in a material. Young's modulus is named after the 19th-century British scientist Thomas Young. However, the concept was developed in 1727 by Leonhard Euler, and the first experiments that used the concept of Young's modulus in its current form were performed by the Italian scientist Giordano Riccati in 1782, pre-dating Young's work by 25 years. The term modulus is the diminutive of the Latin term modus which means measure.