Jean-Baptiste Biot
Jean-Baptiste Biot | |
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École Polytechnique | |
Known for | Biot number Biot–Savart law Circular dichroism Optical rotation |
Awards | Pour le Mérite (1850) Rumford Medal (1840) ForMemRS (1815) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Physics, astronomy and mathematics |
Academic advisors | Gaspard Monge[1] |
Signature | |
Jean-Baptiste Biot (/ˈbiːoʊ, ˈbjoʊ/;[2] French: [bjo]; 21 April 1774 – 3 February 1862) was a French physicist, astronomer, and mathematician who co-discovered the Biot–Savart law of magnetostatics with Félix Savart, established the reality of meteorites, made an early balloon flight, and studied the polarization of light.
The
were named in his honour.Biography
Jean-Baptiste Biot was born in Paris on 21 April 1774 the son of Joseph Biot, a treasury official.[3]
He was educated at Lyceum Louis-le-Grand and
Biot was also a member of the
Jean-Baptiste Biot had a single son, Édouard Constant Biot, an engineer and Sinologist, born in 1803. Edouard died in 1850 and his father made extraordinary efforts to ready for publication the second half of Edouard's last book, a reference translation of the Chinese classic Tcheou-li. It had been left in manuscript, unfinished. To publish it in correct form, Jean-Baptiste Biot wrote, he had to consult Stanislas Julien, the famous Sinologist, but also, especially for the translation of the most difficult part, the Kaogongji, he himself visited many workshops and questioned artisans and craftsmen about their methods and vocabulary in order to verify his son's work. Biot's translation remains to this day the only translation into a Western language of this book.
He died in Paris on 3 February 1862.
Work
Electromagnetism
Articles about |
Electromagnetism |
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Jean-Baptiste Biot made many contributions to the scientific community in his lifetime – most notably in optics, magnetism, and astronomy. The Biot–Savart law in magnetism is named after Biot and his colleague Félix Savart for their work in 1820.[10] In their experiment they showed a connection between electricity and magnetism by "starting with a long vertical wire and a magnetic needle some horizontal distance apart [and showing] that running a current through the wire caused the needle to move" (Parsley).
Meteorites
In 1803 Biot was sent by the
Prior to Biot's thorough investigation of the meteorites that fell near l'Aigle, France in 1803, very few truly believed that rocks found on Earth could have extraterrestrial origins. There were anecdotal tales of unusual rocks found on the ground after fireballs had been seen in the sky, but such stories were often dismissed as fantasy. Serious debate concerning the unusual rocks began in 1794 when Ernst Chladni published a book claiming that such rocks had an extraterrestrial origin (Westrum). Only after Biot was able to analyse the rocks at l'Aigle was it commonly accepted that the fireballs seen in the sky were meteors falling through the atmosphere. Since Biot's time, analysis of meteorites has resulted in accurate measurements of the chemical composition of the solar system. The composition and position of meteors in the solar system have also given astronomers clues as to how the solar system formed.
Polarized light
In 1812, Biot turned his attention to the study of
In 1815 he demonstrated that "polarized light, when passing through an organic substance, could be rotated clockwise or counterclockwise, dependent upon the optical axis of the material."
Biot's work on the polarization of light has led to many breakthroughs in the field of optics.
Cream of Tartar
Selected writings
- Traité élémentaire d'astronomie physique (Klostermann, 1810–1811)
- Récherches expérimentales et mathématiques sur les mouvemens des molécules de la lumière autour de leur centre de gravité (in French). Paris: Firmin Didot. 1814.
- Traité de physique expérimentale et mathématique( Deterville, 1816)
- Précis élémentaire de physique expérimentale (in Italian). Vol. 1. Napoli: Tipografia del Giornale Enciclopedico. 1818.
- Précis élémentaire de physique expérimentale (in Italian). Vol. 2. Napoli: Tipografia del Giornale Enciclopedico. 1818.
- Précis élémentaire de physique expérimentale (in Italian). Vol. 4. Napoli: Tipografia del Giornale Enciclopedico. 1818.
- Précis élémentaire de physique expérimentale (in Italian). Vol. 5. Napoli: Tipografia del Giornale Enciclopedico. 1818.
- Notions élémentaires de statique (in French). Paris: Charles Louis Étienne Bachelier. 1829.
- Précis de l'histoire de l'astronomie planétaire écrit à l'occasion de la découverte de M. Le Verrier (in Italian). Parma: Pietro Fiaccadori. 1854.
- Précis de l'histoire de l'astronomie chinoise (impr. impériale, 1861)
- Études sur l'astronomie indienne et sur l'astronomie chinoise (Lévy frères, 1862)
- Mélanges scientifiques et littéraires (Lévy frères, 1858)
- Recherches sur plusieurs points de l'astronomie égyptienne (Didot, 1823)
See also
Notes
- ^ O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Jean-Baptiste Biot", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews
- ^ "Biot-Savart law". Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.
- ISBN 090219884X. Archived from the original(PDF) on 24 January 2013. Retrieved 18 September 2015.
- ^ Appletons' annual cyclopaedia and register of important events of the year: 1862. New York: D. Appleton & Company. 1863. p. 683.
- ^ K. M. Reese, Chemical & Engineering News, Vol 82 (2004) https://cen.acs.org/articles/82/i25/Newscripts.html
- ^ "Fellow details". Royal Society. Archived from the original on 5 November 2018. Retrieved 19 May 2016.
- ^ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter B" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 8 September 2016.
- ^ "Review of Anecdote relative à M. de Laplace par Jean Baptiste Biot". The Quarterly Review. 87: 115–118. June 1850.
- ^ Biot, J. B. (1816). "Anecdote relative à M. de Laplace". Journal des savants: 65–71. Février 1850
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: CS1 maint: postscript (link) - ^ A joint Biot-Savart paper "Note sur le magnétisme de la pile de Volta" was published in the Annales de chemie et de physique in 1820.
- ^ J.B. Biot (1803) Relation d'un voyage fait dans le département de l'Orne, pour constater la réalité d'un météore observé à l'Aigle le 26 floréal an 11 [Account of a journey made in the department of the Orne [River], in order to ascertain the reality of a meteor observed in l'Aigle on the 26th of Floréal in the year 11 [Note: The date "26 floréal" on the title page is a typographical error; the meteor shower actually occurred on 6 floréal (i.e., April 26, 1803) and everywhere else in the text the date "6 floréal" is given as the date of the meteor shower. (Paris, France: Baudouin, 1803).
- ^ Chladni, Ernst Florens Friedrich, Über den Ursprung der von Pallas gefundenen und anderer ihr ähnlicher Eisenmassen und über einige damit in Verbindung stehende Naturerscheinungen [On the origin of the iron masses found by Pallas and others similar to it, and on some natural phenomena associated with them] (Riga, Latvia: Johann Friedrich Hartknoch, 1794). Available on-line at: Saxon State and University Library at Dresden, Germany.
- ^ Biot, J. B. (1815) "Phenomene de polarisation successive, observés dans des fluides homogenes" (Phenomenon of successive polarization, observed in homogeneous fluids), Bulletin des Sciences, par la Société Philomatique de Paris, 190–192.
- ^ Jean-Baptiste Biot – Florida State University
- ^ Frankel 2009
References
- Frankel, Eugene. "Corpuscular Optics and the Wave Theory of Light: The Science and Politics of Revolution in Physics." Social Studies of Science vol. 6, no 2. May 1976. Sage Publications, Ltd. 15 June 2009 <https://www.jstor.org/stable/284930>.
- Westrum, Ron. "Science and Social Intelligence about Anomalies: The Case of Meteorites." Social Studies of Science vol. 8, no.4 Nov. 1978. Sage Publications, Ltd. 15 June 2009 <https://www.jstor.org/stable/284819>.
- Parsley, Robert J. "THE BIOT-SAVART OPERATOR AND ELECTRODYNAMICS ON BOUNDED SUBDOMAINS OF THE THREE-SPHERE". University of Pennsylvania. <http://users.wfu.edu/parslerj/research/dissertation.parsley.pdf>
Further reading
- Crosland, M.P. (1970–1980). "Biot, Jean-Baptiste". ISBN 978-0-684-10114-9.
- Gounelle, Matthieu (2006). "The meteorite fall at L 'Aigle and the Biot report: exploring the cradle of meteoritics". In Gerald Joseph Home McCall; A. J. Bowden; Richard John Howarth (eds.). The History of Meteoritics and Key Meteorite Collections. ISBN 978-1-86239-194-9.
- Levitt, Theresa (Sep 2003). "Biot's paper and Arago's plates. Photographic practice and the transparency of representation". Isis. 94 (3): 456–476. S2CID 143943335.
- Fox, William (1907). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 2. New York: Robert Appleton Company. . In Herbermann, Charles (ed.).
- Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
External links
- Short biography at Pasteur Brewing