André Marie Ampère (1775-1836), French
physicist,
was born at Polemieux
?, near
Lyons, on the
22nd of January
1775. He is generally credited as one of the main discoverers of
electromagnetism.
The
ampere unit of measurement of electrical current is named after him.
He 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 Bernouilli?. In later life he
was accustomed to say that he knew as much about mathematics
when he was eighteen as ever he knew; but his reading embraced
nearly the whole round of knowledge--history, travels, poetry,
philosophy and the natural sciences.
When Lyons was taken by the army of the Convention in 1793, the father of Ampère,
who, holding the office of juge de paix, had stood out
resolutely against the previous revolutionary excesses, was
at once thrown into prison, and soon after perished on the
scaffold. This event produced a profound impression on his
susceptible mind, and for more than a year he remained sunk in
apathy. Then his interest was aroused by some letters on
botany which fell into his hands, and from botany he turned to
the study of the classic poets, and to the writing of verses
himself.
In 1796 he met Julie Carron, and an attachment
sprang up between them, the progress of which he naively
recorded in a journal (Amorum). 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 at Lyons. She died in
1804, and he never recovered from the blow. In the same year
he was appointed professor of mathematics at the lycee of
Lyons.
His small treatise, Considerations sur la theorie
mathematique du jeu, which demonstrated that the chances of
play are decidedly against the habitual gambler, published in
1802, brought him under the notice of [J. B. J. Delambre]?, whose
recommendation obtained for him the Lyons appointment, and
afterwards (1804) a subordinate position in the polytechnic
school at Paris, where he was elected professor of mathematics
in 1809. Here he continued to prosecute his scientific
researches and his multifarious studies with unabated
diligence. He was admitted a member of the Institute in
1814.
It is 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
be called it, electrodynamics, that Ampère's fame mainly
rests. On the 11th of September 1820 he heard of H. C. Ørsted's
discovery that a magnetic needle is acted on by a voltaic
current. On the 18th of the same month he presented a paper
to the Academy, containing a far more complete exposition
of that and kindred phenomena.
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.
His original
memoirs on this subject may be found in the Ann. Chim.
Phys. between 1820 and 1828. Late in life he prepared
a remarkable Essai sur la philosophie des sciènces. In
addition, he wrote a number of scientific memoirs and papers,
including two on the integration of partial differential
equations (Jour. Ecole Polytechn. x., xi.).
He died at Marseille? on the 10th of June 1836. The great amiability
and childlike simplicity of Ampère's character are well
brought out in his Journal et correspondance (Paris, 1872).
Initial text from 1911 encyclopedia
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