Andre-Marie Ampere – Thoughtful and versatile scientist

Andre-Marie Ampere – (1775 – 1836) – The ancestor of electrodynamics did not go to primary school, his father taught him alone. Ampere sent his first scientific work to the Lyon Academy of Sciences (Academie de Lyon) at the age of 13! A quiet life and urgent studies were interrupted when his father was guillotined in 1793 for the Jacobin dictatorship. Eighteen-year-old Ampere has suffered this trauma. After the period of mourning, he returned to science and spiritual work. He was interested in mathematics and physics as well as in philosophy, botany, chemistry, as well as Latin, Italian and Greek.

Son Jean-Jacques Ampere (1800 – 1864) after his father’s death finished his work. Which was to classify the sciences –

Sketches from the philosophy of science, or an analytic representation of the general classification of all human knowledge

But his greatest merit is description of magnetism and subsequent establishment of the theory of electromagnetic phenomena as the basis of electrodynamics. He also created the first magnetic coil, which became the basis for the later telegraph.

At the age of 22, he began to teach mathematics in Lyon and later became a professor of chemistry and physics. For nineteen years he taught at the Polytechnique in Paris. During his lifetime he belonged to many scientific societies and he was also appreciated abroad. Unfortunately, his financial situation did not reflect merit. He often lacked money for experiments, which delayed his work.
He spent most of his life traveling, while on one of them in Marseilles, on June 10, 1836, he died. On the gravestone, according to his wishes, engraved: Tandem felix – Finally happy.