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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] Andre Ampere Biography AMPÈRE, ANDRÉ MARIE (1775-1836). A distinguished French physicist, mathematician, and naturalist, born at Lyons. The death of his father under the guillotine in 1793 made a deep and melancholy impression on the mind of the young man, and he sought solace in the study of nature and the Latin poets. In 1801, after he had been engaged for some time as private mathematical tutor at Lyons, he became professor of physics in the Central School of the department of Ain at Bourg. He was afterward professor of mathematics at Lyons. He was called to Paris, where he distinguished himself as an able teacher in the Polytechnic School. He began his career as an author by the essay on the mathematical theory of chances, Sur la théorie mathématique du jeu (Lyons, 1S02). In 1814 he was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences and in 1824 was appointed professor of experimental physics in the College de France. Science is largely indebted to Ampère, especially for his electro-dynamic theory and his original views of the identity of electricity and magnetism, as given in his Recueil d'observations électro-dynamiques (Paris, 1822) and his Théorie des phénomènes électro-dynamiques (Paris, 1826). Ampère was the inventor of the astatic needle (q.v.), which made possible the modern astatic galvanometer (q.v.). He was the first to show that two parallel conductors carrying currents traveling in the same direction attract each other, while if traveling in opposite directions they repel each other. Ampère also formulated the theory that there were currents of electricity circulating in the earth in the direction of its diurnal revolution which attracted the magnetic needle. The ampere (q.v.), or unit of the strength of an electrical current, is named after him. Ampère's scientific papers are largely contained in the Annales de Physique. et de Chimie. A eulogy by Arago, delivered shortly after his death, which contains an account of his life, will be found translated into English in the annual report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1872 (Washington, 1872). The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. I (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 558. |