André Ampère (January 20, 1775 - June 10 1836)

André Ampère was a brilliant mathematician and physicist. His intelligence showed even at a very young age. He contributed to the fields of Math and Science in many ways and spent his whole life studying them.

Ampère was born in Lyon, France on January 20, 1775. His father, Jean Jacques Ampère was a wealthy man who owned a home in Lyon and a country house in Poleymieux. The family spent most of their time in Lyon and only a few months in the summer at the country house until Ampère was seven. In 1782 the country house became their home. Ampère's father wanted to spend more time on his son's education.

Despite not attending school, Ampère was given an excellent education. He was encouraged by his parents to study and because of this always felt very confident in his abilities. It has been claimed that he had mastered all known mathematics by the time he was twelve but this seems somewhat of an exaggeration since, by Ampère's own account, he didn't even start to read elementary math books until he was thirteen.

Ampère quickly developed his own mathematical ideas and he started writing about conic sections. Since he didn't know anyone with any knowledge of mathematics, he felt his ideas were original. He submitted his first paper when he was only thirteen. In this work, he attempted to solve the problem of constructing a line of the same length as an arc of a circle. His method involved the use of infinitesimal but since he had not yet studied calculus, the paper was found not good enough to be published by the academy of Lyon. Shortly after, Ampère took lessons in the differential and integral calculus from a monk in Lyon.

Shortly after began the French Revolution on July 14, 1789. At first this didn't affect Ampère until late 1791 when his father accepted the position of Justice of the Peace. This made it almost impossible for him to avoid trouble. The first misfortune to hit Ampère and his family was when his sister died in 1792. Later that year his father was arrested and went to the guillotine. The death of his father devastated Ampère who then gave up his studies for eighteen months. He only returned to his old self when he fell in love and was married in 1799. At this point, Ampère began tutoring mathematics in Lyon. He continued tutoring until 1802 when he was appointed professor of Physics and Chemistry at Bourg Ecole Centrale.While Ampère taught in Bourg, he spent much time teaching Physics and Chemistry but his research was in mathematics. He submitted a paper to the Paris Academy in 1800 on probability. The school noticed an error which it explained in a letter. Ampère was able to correct this problem and the paper was reprinted. It was modified a number of times, so many that Ampère was never confident to call it complete for fear that more changes were required. That same year, he submitted another paper on the calculus of variations.

After being at Bourg for only a year, he moved closer to Poleymieux where he was given a mathematics position. His time spent in Lyon had been made difficult due to his wife's declining health. She died in July 1803. After her death, he decided to leave Lyon for Paris.By this time, Ampère had a good reputation as a teacher of mathematics and as a research mathematician. In 1804 he was given the position of repetiteur in analysis at the Ecole Polytechnique. This was quite an achievement considering he didn't have a formal education and qualifications. This shows that his potential was recognized.Ampère was appointed professor of Mathematics in 1809 and held this position until 1828. In 1826 he was appointed a chair at Universite de France which he held until his death on June 10, 1836 (Marseilles, France).

Andre Ampere laid the foundation for the science of Electrodynamics. He demonstrated that electric currents produce magnetic fields. He further demonstrated that the direction of the magnetic field is determined by the direction of the current. He developed a relationship between the strength of a magnetic field in relation to an electric current (Ampere's theorem). He proposed a theory as to how iron becomes magnetized. Also, he devised a rule governing the mutual integration of current carrying wires (Ampere's laws) and produced a definition of the unit of measurement of current now known as the ampere (amps).

He invented the astatic needle, which made the modern astatic galvanometer possible. He showed that flat parallel electric currents attract each other if they move in the same direction and repel if their directions are opposite. He also discovered that an electric current through a coil acts like a magnet.

Electromagnetism was virtually unknown and Ampère opened the doors to its discoveries. Ampère's ideas were further developed by Faraday to discover electromagnetic induction. His ideas were also developed by Weber, Thomson and Maxwell and continue to be used today.