André-Marie Ampère

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André-Marie Ampère

Born:	January 20, 1775
Died:	June 10, 1836 Marseille, France
Occupation:	Physicist
Website:	www.ampere.cnrs.fr

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 SI unit of measurement of electric current, the ampere, is named after him.

[edit] Early days

Ampère was born in Poleymieux-au-Mont-d'Or, near Lyon, 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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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 correspondence (Paris, 1872). Forty-five years later, mathematicians recognised him.

[edit] References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

He died in 1888 and was given an award for being the best Mathematician of all time. It was also discovered that Ampere had a secret relationship with an 13 year old girl, called Isabelle. She then became pregnant and died during labour. Although, her child lived and believe it or not was the father of Albert Einstein.

[edit] External links

• Ampere and the history of electricity (Correspondence, bibliography, experiments, simulations, etc., edited by CNRS, France)
• Ampere's Museum (CNRS) is in Poleymieux-au-Mont-d'or, near Lyon, France
• O'Connor, John J., and Edmund F. Robertson. "André-Marie Ampère". MacTutor History of Mathematics archive.
• Eric W. Weisstein, Ampère, André (1775-1836) at ScienceWorld.