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> WILLIAMS, "Ampère", in Dictionary of Scientific Biography, 1970.
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AMPÈRE, ANDRE-MARIE: (b. Lyons, France, 22 January 1775; d. Marseilles. France, 10 June 1836), mathematics, chemistry, physics.
Ampère's father, Jean-Jacques, was a merchant of independent means who, soon after his son's birth, moved the family to the nearby village of Poleymieux, where André-Marie grew up. The house is today a national museum. Jean-Jacques Ampère had been greatly influenced by the educational theories of Rousseau and was determined to educate his son along the lines laid down in Emile. The method he seems to have followed was to expose his son to a considerable library and let him educate himself as his own tastes dictated. One of the first works Ampère read was Buffon's Histoire naturelle, which stimulated his lifelong interest in taxonomy. Probably the most important influence on him was the great Encyclopédie – even thirty years later he could recite many of the articles from memory. In his father's library he also discovered Antoine Laurent Thomas's eulogy of Descartes, which convinced him of the nobility of a life in science. It also introduced him to metaphysics, the one passion he sustained throughout his life. Almost incidentally Ampère discovered and perfected his mathematical talents. As an infant, he was fascinated by numbers and taught himself the elements of number theory. Like the young Pascal, having been forbidden the rigors of geometry because of his tender years, he defied parental authority and worked out the early books of Euclid by himself. When the librarian in Lyons informed him that the works by Euler and Bernoulli that he wished to read were in Latin, Ampère rushed home to learn this language. He soon became adept enough to read the books that interested him, but continued his studies to the point where he could write quite acceptable Latin verse. Ampère's early education was also conducted in a deeply religious atmosphere. His mother, the former Jeanne Desutières-Sarcey, was a devout woman who saw to it that her son was thoroughly instructed in the Catholic faith. Throughout his life, Ampère reflected the double heritage of the Encyclopédie and Catholicism. He was almost constantly assailed by the doubts sown by the Encyclopedists and, just as constantly, renewed his faith. From this conflict came his concern for metaphysics, which shaped his approach to science. Ampère's childhood ended in 1789 with the outbreak of the French Revolution. Although Poleymieux was a rural backwater, the events in Lyons soon involved the Ampère family. Jean-Jacques was called upon by his fellow citizens to assume the post of juge de paix, a post with important police powers. He met the threat of a Jacobin purge head-on by ordering the arrest of Joseph Chalier, the leading Jacobin of Lyons. Chalier was executed. When Lyons fell to the troops of the Republic, Jean-Jacques Ampère was tried and guillotined on 23 November 1793. The event struck André-Marie like a bolt of lightning. The world had always been remote: now it had moved to the very center of his life, and this sudden confrontation was more than he could immediately bear. For a year he retreated within himself, not speaking to anyone and trying desperately to understand what had happened. His contact with the outside world was minimal: only an interest in botany, stimulated by a reading of Rousseau's letters on the subject, seemed to survive. It was in this extremely vulnerable emotional state that Ampère met the young lady who was to become his wife. Julie Carron was somewhat older than Ampère and as a member of a good bourgeois family must have seen Ampère's suit in a somewhat unfavorable light. Although the Ampères and the Carrons lived in neighboring villages and shared a common
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