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Andr-marie AmpreAndr-Marie Ampre (January 20 1775 – June 10 1836), was a French physicist who is generally credited as one of the main discoverers of electromagnetism. The ampere unit of measurement of electric current is named after him. He was born at Poleymieux-au-Mont-d'or, near Lyons and 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 Ampre, however, soon resumed his Latin lessons, to enable him to master the works of Euler and Bernoulli. 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 Ampre, 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 Andr-Marie's 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 navely recorded in a journal (Amorum). In 1799 they were married. From about 1796 Ampre 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 (Jean Jacques Ampre) 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 lyce of Lyons. His small treatise Considrations sur la thorie mathmatique du jeu, which demonstrated that the chances of play are decidedly against the habitual gambler, published in 1802, brought him under the notice of Jean Baptiste Joseph 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 he called it, electrodynamics, that Ampre's fame mainly rests. On September 11 1820 he heard of H. C. rsted's discovery that a magnetic needle is acted on by a voltaic current. On the September 18 (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 sciences. In addition, he wrote a number of scientific memoirs and papers, including two on the integration of partial differential equations (Jour. cole Polytechn. x., xi.). He died at Marseille and is buried in the Cimetire de Montmartre, Paris. The great amiability and childlike simplicity of Ampre's character are well brought out in his Journal et correspondance (Paris, 1872). Forty-five years later, mathematicians recognized him. References Ampere, Andre Marie Ampere, Andre Marie Ampre, Andr-Marie Ampre, Andr-Marie // The following site is also very informative: http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Ampere.html
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