the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
adj. Having little or no tendency to take a fixed or definite position or direction: thus, a suspended magnetic needle, when rendered astatic, loses its polarity, or tendency to point in a given direction.
The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
Unstable; unsteady.
Hence In physical, having no tendency to take a definite (fixed) position; without directive power: used especially of a magnetic needle whose directive property has been neutralized.
WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
adj. not static or stable
Word Usage
"Quartz fibres have two great advantages over other forms of suspension when employed for any kind of torsion balance, from an ordinary more or less "astatic" galvanometer to the Cavendish apparatus."