André-Marie Ampère
André-Marie Ampère (1775-1836)
Born	(1775-01-20)20 January 1775 Parish of St. Nizier, Lyon, France
Died	10 June 1836(1836-06-10) (aged 61) Marseille, France
Residence	France
Nationality	French
Fields	Physics
Institutions	Bourg-en-Bresse École Polytechnique
Known for	Ampere's Law
Signature

André-Marie Ampère (20 January 1775 – 10 June 1836) was a French physicist and mathematician who is generally regarded as one of the main discoverers of electromagnetism. The SI unit of measurement of electric current, the ampere, is named after him.

Early days[link]

Ampère was born in Lyon, France on 20 January 1775. He spent his childhood and adolescence at the family property at Poleymieux-au-Mont-d'Or near Lyon.^[1] His father began to teach him Latin, until he discovered the boy's preference and aptitude for mathematical studies. The young Ampère, however, soon resumed his Latin lessons, to enable him to master the works of Euler and Bernoulli. In later life Ampère claimed that he knew as much about mathematics and science when he was eighteen as ever he knew; but, a polymath, his reading embraced history, travels, poetry, philosophy, and the natural sciences.

During the French Revolution, Ampere's father stayed at Lyon expecting to be safer there. Nevertheless, after the revolutionaries had taken the city he was captured and executed. This death was a great shock to Ampère.

In 1796 Ampère met Julie Carron, and in 1799 they were married. From about 1796, Ampère gave private lessons at Lyon in mathematics, chemistry, and languages. In 1801 he moved to Bourg-en-Bresse, as professor of physics and chemistry, leaving his ailing wife and his infant son (Jean-Jacques Ampère) at Lyon. Her death, in July 1803, troubled Ampère for the rest of his life. Also in 1804, Ampère was appointed professor of mathematics at the University of Lyon.

Ampère claimed that "at eighteen years he found three culminating points in his life, his First Communion, the reading of Antoine Leonard Thomas's "Eulogy of Descartes", and the Taking of the Bastille. On the day of his wife's death he wrote two verses from the Psalms, and the prayer, 'O Lord, God of Mercy, unite me in Heaven with those whom you have permitted me to love on earth.' Serious doubts harassed him at times, and made him very unhappy. Then he would take refuge in the reading of the Bible and the Fathers of the Church."^[2]

For a time he took into his family the young student Antoine-Frédéric Ozanam (1813–1853), one of the founders of the Conference of Charity, later known as the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul. Through Ampère, Ozanam had contact with leaders of the neo-Catholic movement, such as François-René de Chateaubriand, Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire, and Charles Forbes René de Montalembert. Ozanam was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1997.

Physics and further studies[link]

Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre's recommendation obtained for Ampère the Lyon appointment, and afterwards (1805) a minor position in the polytechnic school at Paris, where he was appointed professor of mathematics in 1809. Here Ampère continued to pursue his scientific research and his diverse studies with unabated diligence. He was admitted as a member of the Institute in 1814.

Ampère's fame mainly rests on his establishing the relations between electricity and magnetism, and in developing the science of electromagnetism, or, as he called it, electrodynamics. On 11 September 1820 he heard of H. C. Ørsted's discovery that a magnetic needle is acted on by a voltaic current. Only a week later, on 18 September, Ampère presented a paper to the Academy containing a much more complete exposition of that and kindred phenomena. On the same day, Ampère also demonstrated before the Academy that parallel wires carrying currents attract or repel each other, depending on whether currents are in the same (attraction) or in opposite directions (repulsion). This laid the foundation of electrodynamics.

The topic of electromagnetism thus begun, Ampère developed a mathematical theory which not only described the electromagnetic phenomena already observed, but also predicted many new ones.

In 1827 he was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society and in 1828, a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Science.^[3]

Writings[link]

• Considerations sur la théorie mathématique du jeu, Perisse, Lyon Paris 1802, online lesen im Internet-Archiv
• André-Marie Ampère: Recueil d'observations électro-dynamiques. contenant divers mémoires, notices, extraits de lettres ou d'ouvrages périodiques sur les sciences, relatifs a l'action mutuelle de deux courans électriques, à celle qui existe entre un courant électrique et un aimant ou le globe terrestre, et à celle de deux aimans l'un sur l'autre Chez Crochard, 1822 (read online at Google Books; as at: 2010-9-26). 
• André-Marie Ampère, Babinet (Jacques, M.): Exposé des nouvelles découvertes sur l'électricité et le magneétisme. Chez Méquignon-Marvis, 1822 (read online at Google Books; as at: 2010-9-26). 
• André-Marie Ampère: Description d'un appareil électro-dynamique. Chez Crochard … et Bachelie, 1824 (read online at Google Books; as at: 2010-9-26). 
• André-Marie Ampère: Théorie des phénomènes électro-dynamiques, uniquement déduite de l'expérience. Méquignon-Marvis, 1826 (read online at Google Books; as at: 2010-9-26). 
  • André-Marie Ampère: Théorie mathématique des phénomènes électro-dynamiques: uniquement déduite de l'expérience. A. Hermann, 1883 (Neuauflage) (online lesen im Internet-Archiv; as at: 2010-9-26). 
• André-Marie Ampère: Essai sur la philosophie des sciences, ou, Exposition analytique d'une classification naturelle de toutes les connaissances humaines. Chez Bachelier, 1834 (read online at Google Books; as at: 2010-9-26). 
  • André-Marie Ampère: Essai sur la philosophie des sciences. Bd. 1, Chez Bachelier, 1834 (read online at Google Books; as at: 2010-9-26). 
  • André-Marie Ampère: Essai sur la philosophie des sciences. Bd. 2, Bachelier, 1843 (read online at Google Books; as at: 2010-9-26). 

Last years[link]

Grave of Ampère and his son

Ampère died at Marseille and was buried in the Cimetière de Montmartre, Paris. The great amiability and childlike simplicity of his character are well brought out in his Journal et correspondence (Paris, 1872).

Ampère's final work, published posthumously, was Essai sur la philosophie des sciences, ou exposition analytique d'une classification naturelle de toutes les connaissances humaines ("Essay on the philosophy of science or analytical exposition on the natural classification of human knowledge").

References[link]

Williams, L. Pearce (1970). "Ampère, André-Marie". Dictionary of Scientific Biography. 1. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 139–147. ISBN 0-684-10114-9. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: André-Marie Ampère

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Ampère, André Marie.

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: André-Marie Ampère

• Ampère and the history of electricity - a French-language, edited by CNRS, site with Ampère's correspondence (full text and critical edition with links to manuscripts pictures, more than 1000 letters), an Ampère bibliography, experiments, and 3D simulations
• Ampère Museum - a French-language site from the museum in Poleymieux-au-Mont-d'or, near Lyon, France
• O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "André-Marie Ampère", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews, http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Ampere.html .
• Weisstein, Eric W., Ampère, André (1775-1836) from ScienceWorld.
• Catholic Encyclopedia on André Marie Ampère

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 
• André-Marie Ampère: The Founder of Electromagnetism - Background information and related experiments

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2008)

André Marie (3 December 1897 Honfleur, Calvados  – 12 June 1974 Rouen) was a French Radical politician who served as Prime Minister during the Fourth Republic in 1948.

Biography[link]

Born at Honfleur in 1897, the young André Marie studied at primary and secondary level there, going on to the Lycée Pierre Corneille,^[1] when his parents moved to Rouen in 1908. While preparing to apply to the École Normale Supérieure Lettres et Sciences Humaines, he was mobilised at the end of 1916. By the end of World War I, he commanded a battery of 75 men. He received two light injuries and numerous commendations. He was decorated with the Croix de guerre with palm.

He started work as a lawyer in 1922. He was elected Deputy for Seine-Inférieure (now Seine-Maritime), holding his seat in the Palais Bourbon from 1928 to 1962. In 1933, André Marie entered the government as Under-Secretary of State to Albert Sarraut, responsible for Alsace-Lorraine. He served in several Under-Secretarial posts, and represented France at the League of Nations.

As World War II escalated, André Marie, a reserve captain, was one of several parliamentarians who enlisted voluntarily. An artillery captain, he was decorated with a second croix de guerre, taken prisoner, and imprisoned at the Oflag at Saarburg. He was therefore absent for the vote of 10 July 1940, which empowered Marshal Pétain and instituted the regime of Vichy France.

Marie was freed in 1941, having served as an officer in both World Wars. Refusing Vichy politics on his return to Seine-Maritime, he resigned all his elected offices, and in a letter to his constituents, expained that he could not exercise his mandate while the people could not be consulted freely. As a member of the Georges-France resistance network, he was denounced and arrested on 12 September 1943 by occupation authorities, imprisoned at Compiègne, then deported to a camp at Buchenwald on 16 December 1943, where he remained until the liberation of the camp by American troops on 11 April 1945. He had lost 30 kilograms, and had suffered a heart infection and a liver infection.

On his return to France, André Marie quickly regained his place in political life, both at departmental and national levels.

In 1947, he was appointed Minister of Justice in the Ramadier ministry, and presided over the last trials in the High Court of collaborators. The President called on him to become Prime Minister, replacing Robert Schuman on 27 July 1948, but he was obliged to resign a month later.

He accepted the post of Deputy Prime Minister in the Queuille cabinet in 1948, and was again named Minister of Justice, refusing to pursue the Communists after the miners' strikes of 1948. On 3 February 1949, as Minister of Justice, he was called to account in the National Assembly on the matter of the economic collaborator Pierre Brice. The radical Deputy Emmanuel d'Astier de la Vigerie declared: "Men who have amassed fortunes as a result of collaboration are now largely free to enjoy the fruits of their treason because the government, indulgent towards collaborators, has led a politic of repression against the working class." Weakened by the affair, André Marie resigned on 13 February 1949.

He then served as Minister of Education, from August 1951 until June 1954. Il brought about the Marie and Barangé laws, in support of free education. An ardent proponent of public education, he brought about the law, still in place, which makes students of the écoles normales supérieures trainee civil servants: in exchange for a monthly salary, they may be asked to serve the government at any point during the ten years following their matriculation.

Mayor of Barentin from 1945 to 1974, he installed the statues of the town's famous "street museum".

Ministry (26 July - 5 September 1948)[link]

• André Marie - President of the Council
• Pierre-Henri Teitgen - Vice President of the Council
• Léon Blum - Vice President of the Council
• Robert Schuman - Minister of Foreign Affairs
• René Mayer - Minister of National Defense
• Jules Moch - Minister of the Interior
• Paul Reynaud - Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs
• Robert Lacoste - Minister of Commerce and Industry
• Daniel Mayer - Minister of Labour and Social Security
• Robert Lecourt - Minister of Justice
• Yvon Delbos - Minister of National Education
• André Maroselli - Minister of Veterans and War Victims
• Pierre Pflimlin - Minister of Agriculture
• Paul Coste-Floret - Minister of Overseas France
• Christian Pineau - Minister of Public Works and Transport
• Pierre Schneiter - Minister of Public Health and Population
• René Coty - Minister of Reconstruction and Town Planning
• Henri Queuille - Minister of State
• Paul Ramadier - Minister of State

References[link]

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