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Ampère, André Marie

 
Scientist: André-Marie Ampère
 

André-Marie Ampère
Library of Congress

[b. Lyon, France, January 20, 1775, d. Marseilles, France, June 10, 1836]

Ampère was the first to recognize that there is a direction for the flow of an electric current and to introduce a convention for determining that direction. He showed that wires carrying electric currents attract and repel each other magnetically. The amount of magnetism reflects the strength of the current. In 1827 he put his discoveries into the mathematical form known as Ampère's law: The magnetic force generated between two current-carrying wires varies directly with the product of their currents and inversely with the square of the distance between the wires. Ampère was one of the first to show that when current flows through a wire coiled into a helix, or three-dimensional spiral, the wire behaves like a bar magnet. This property later fueled many of the inventions of the age of electricity, including the telegraph, electric motor, and telephone.


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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: André Marie Ampère
 

(born Jan. 22, 1775, Lyon, France — died June 10, 1836, Marseille) French physicist, founder of the science of electromagnetism. A prodigy who mastered the entire known field of mathematics by age 12, he became a professor of physics, chemistry, and mathematics. He formulated a law of electromagnetism, called Ampère's law, that describes the magnetic force between two electric currents. An instrument he devised to measure the flow of electricity was later refined as the galvanometer. His chief published work was Memoir on the Mathematical Theory of Electrodynamic Phenomena (1827). The ampere (A) unit of electric current was named for him.

For more information on André Marie Ampère, visit Britannica.com.

 
French Literature Companion: André-Marie Ampère
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Ampère, André-Marie (1775-1836). French physicist, founder of the science now known as electromagnetism. Ampère, a child prodigy in mathematics and later an inspired experimentalist, was the first to demonstrate, and to express mathematically, the relationship between electricity and magnetism. He initiated a standard system of measurement for electric currents. His works include an Essai sur la philosophie des sciences (1834-44) and the posthumously published Journal et correspondance.

[Malcolm Bowie]

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: André Marie Ampère
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Ampère, André Marie (ăm'pēr; Fr. äNdrā' märē' äNpĕr') , 1775–1836, French physicist, mathematician, and natural philosopher. He was professor of mathematics at the École Polytechnique, Paris, and later at the Collège de France. Known for his contributions to electrodynamics, including the formulation of Ampère's law, he confirmed and amplified the work of Oersted on the relationship of electricity and magnetism, and he invented the astatic needle. The ampere was named for him. His writings include Recueil d'observations électro-dynamiques (1822) and Essai sur la philosophie des sciences (2 vol., 1834–43, vol. 1 repr. 1838).

Bibliography

See his Correspondance pub. by L. de Launay (3 vol., 1936–43).

 
Dictionary: Am·père   (ăm'pîr, äN-pĕr') pronunciation, André Marie
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1775–1836.

French physicist and mathematician who formulated Ampère's law, a mathematical description of the magnetic field produced by a current-carrying conductor.


 
 

 

Copyrights:

Scientist. History of Science and Technology, edited by Bryan Bunch and Alexander Hellemans. Copyright © 2004 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
French Literature Companion. The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French. Copyright © 1995, 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/  Read more
Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more