- Andre-Marie Ampere was
born in January 20th, 1775 in Lyon, Kingdom of France.
He was an accomplished physicist, mathematician and
educator. He was also one of the founding fathers of
electromagnetism. The SI unit for measuring current
was named after him.
During his early years, Ampere's education
was mostly self-taught as is father encouraged him to be
knowledgeable in a variety of subjects. He grew up during
the French Revolution and the overtake by the Jacobin
political faction which highly influenced his life.
Ampere's father was guillotined by the Jacobin faction in
November 1793.
Ampere's career began as a private tutor in
mathematics and eventually as a professor of mathematics
in 1809 at École Polytechnique. He
held this position for 19 years despite the lack of formal
education. He actively pursued research in science and
mathematics alongside his teaching career. This led him to
garner an interest in electromagnetism and eventually
to discover Ampere's Law, one of his major achievements.
The personal life of Ampere was not a very
happy life. He was married in 1799 to Catherine-Antoinette
Carron who bore him a son, but she died of cancer in 1803.
His second marriage to Jeanne-Françoise Potot did not last
very long. They parted ways after the birth of their only
daughter. His son was a disappointment to him and Ampere
lived in poverty during his final years.
Andre-Marie Ampere died on June 10th, 1836 at the age of 61 in Marseilles, Kingdom of France after falling ill with pneumonia. On the Eiffel Tower, his name is one of seventy two names inscribed.