ANDRE MARIE AMPERE
Birth: 20th January 1775/ Death: 10th June 1836
Andre Marie Ampere was a French physicist who was a teacher by profession. The credit of founding and naming the science of electrodynamics, known as electro-magnetism, largely goes to him. He owes a permanent place in the history of Science because it was his name that was given to the unit by which we measure electrical current.
The term genius or prodigy may be considered less sufficient to indicate the intellectual ability of this great scientific personality. The very fact that he had mastered almost all the important sections in mathematics by the time he was 15, is the most evident proof for his intellectual calibre. He
became a professor of physics and chemistry at Bourg-en-Bresse in 1801 and a professor of mathematics at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris in 1809. He had, of course, an interest in
electricity; in addition, Ampere made similar investigations into the nature of matter in its now gaseous state.
Ampere was not a methodical experimenter. On the other hand, whenever there was a flash of
inspiration he responded positively and availed all the opportunities to reach rational and mathematical conclusions. which he would then pursue to their conclusion. For example, it was when he learned of Danish physicist Hans Christian Orsted's discovery in 1820 that he formulated a law ofelectroma-gnetism (commonly called Ampère's law). This law describes mathematically the magnetic force between two electric currents.
Being the first person to develop measuring techniques for electricity, Ampere built an instrument utilizing a free-moving needle to measure the flow of electricity. Its later refinement
was known as the galvanometer.
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