André-Marie Ampère

André-Marie Ampère (January 20 1775 – June 10 1836), was a French physicist who is generally credited as one of the main discoverers of electromagnetism. The ampere unit of measurement of electric current is named after him. The Ampere's Museum is in Poleymieux-au-Mont-d'or (near Lyon, France) and a website edited by CNRS (main public research organization in France) is online at www.ampere.cnrs.fr

Early days

Ampère was born in Lyon, near his father's country house in Poleymieux and, as a child prodigy, took a passionate delight in the pursuit of knowledge from his very infancy, and is reported to have worked out long arithmetical sums by means of pebbles and biscuit crumbs before he knew the figures. His father began to teach him Latin, but ceased on discovering the boy's greater inclination and aptitude for mathematical studies. The young Ampère, however, soon resumed his Latin lessons, to enable him to master the works of Euler and Bernoulli.

In later life he was accustomed to say that he knew as much about mathematics when he was eighteen as ever he knew; but, a polymath, his reading embraced nearly the whole round of knowledge — history, travels, poetry, philosophy and the natural sciences.

In 1796 he met Julie Carron, and an attachment sprang up between them. In 1799 they were married. From about 1796 Ampère gave private lessons at Lyons in mathematics, chemistry and languages; and in 1801 he removed to Bourg, as professor of physics and chemistry, leaving his ailing wife and infant son (Jean Jacques Ampère) at Lyon. She died in 1804, and he never recovered from her death. In the same year he was appointed professor of mathematics at the lycée of Lyon.

Contributions to physics and further studies

Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre's recommendation obtained for him the Lyon appointment, and afterwards (1804) a subordinate position in the polytechnic school at Paris, where he was appointed professor of mathematics in 1809. Here he continued to pursue his scientific research and his diverse studies with unabated diligence. He was admitted as a member of the Institute in 1814.

Ampère's fame mainly rests on the service that he rendered to science in establishing the relations between electricity and magnetism, and in developing the science of electromagnetism, or, as he called it, electrodynamics. On September 11, 1820 he heard of H. C. Ørsted's discovery that a magnetic needle is acted on by a voltaic current. Only a week later, on September 18, he presented a paper to the Academy containing a far more complete exposition of that and kindred phenomena.

Legacy and final days

The whole field thus opened up he explored with characteristic industry and care, and developed a mathematical theory which not only explained the electromagnetic phenomena already observed but also predicted many new ones.

He died at Marseille and is buried in the Cimetière de Montmartre, Paris. The great amiability and childlike simplicity of Ampère's character are well brought out in his Journal et correspondance (Paris, 1872). Forty-five years later, mathematicians recognized him.

References

External links

www.ampere.cnrs.fr - Ampere and the history of electricity, (Correspondence, bibliography, experiments, simulations, etc., edited by CNRS, France)

1775 births | 1836 deaths | Electrostatics | French physicists | Alumni of the École Polytechnique

Gourt Home::Gourt :: André-Marie Ampère

Early days

Contributions to physics and further studies

Legacy and final days

References

External links