- Ampère, André-Marie
- SUBJECT AREA: Electricity[br]b. 22 Jan 1775 Lyon, Franced. 10 June 1836 Marseille, France[br]French physicist and mathematician who established laws and principles relating magnetism and electricity to each other.[br]Ampère was reputed to have mastered all the then-known mathematics by the age of 12. He became Professor of Physics and Chemistry at Bourg in 1801 and a professor of mathematics at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris in 1809. Observing a demonstration in 1820 of Oersted's discovery that a magnetic needle was deflected when placed near a current-carrying wire, Ampère was inspired to investigate the subject of electricity, of which he had no previous experience. Within a week he had prepared the first of several important communications on his discoveries to the Academy of Sciences in Paris. Included was a new hypothesis formed on the basis of his experiments on the relation between electricity and magnetism. He investigated the forces exerted on each other by current-carrying conductors and the properties of a solenoid. His mathematical theory describing these phenomena provided the foundations for the development of electro-dynamics and his classic work Théorie mathématique des phénomènes électro-dynamiques was published in 1827.The name "ampere" was adopted to replace the name "weber" as a unit of current after Helmholtz proposed such a change in 1881.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFRS 1827Bibliography1827, Théorie mathématique des phénomènes électro-dynamiques, Paris; repub. 1958, Paris (his chief published work).Further ReadingP.Lenard, 1933, Great Men of Science, London, pp. 223–30 (provides a short account). C.C.Gillispie (ed.), 1970, Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 1, New York, pp.139–46.GW
Biographical history of technology. - Taylor & Francis e-Librar. Lance Day and Ian McNeil. 2005.
