Ampere, Andre-Marie

Ampere, Andre-Marie
He was a French physicist and mathematician who established laws and principles relating magnetism and electricity to each other.

Ampere was repeated 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, Ampere 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 phenomenon provided the foundations for the development of electrodynamics and his classic work Theorie mathematique des phenomenes electrodynamiques was published in 1827.

The name ‘ampere’ was adopted to replace the name ‘weber’ as a unit of current after Helmholtz proposed such as a change in 1881.
Ampere, Andre-Marie