Jean-Baptiste Biot (April 21 1774, Paris – February 3 1862, Paris) was a French physicist, astronomer and mathematician. In the early 1800s, he studied the polarisation of light passing through chemical solutions, as well as the relationship between electrical current and magnetism. The Biot-Savart law, which describes the magnetic field generated by a steady current, is named after him and Félix Savart. Biot was the first to discover the unique optical properties of mica, and therefore the mica-based mineral biotite was named after him. In 1804 Biot and Joseph Gay-Lussac made a hot-air balloon ascent to a height of five kilometres in an early investigation of the Earth's atmosphere. There is a small crater named for Biot on the Moon. Biot was a graduate of the very famous French engineering school Ecole Polytechnique (X). Late in Biot's life, Pasteur demonstrated to him the opposite optical rotations (equal angle, but opposite direction) of polarized light passing through aqueous solutions of mirror-image crystals. The Biot who helped make and fly the Massia-Biot glider is a different person. See list of early flying machines.
Books by J.B. Biot
- Traité élémentaire d'astronomie physique (Klostermann, 1810-1811)
- Traité de physique expérimentale et mathématique( Deterville, 1816)
- 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)
External links
- Catholic Enyclopedia article
- O'Connor, John J; Edmund F. Robertson "Jean-Baptiste Biot". MacTutor History of Mathematics archive.
| Preceded by Charles Lacretelle Jeune |
Seat 12 Académie française 1856–1862 |
Succeeded by Louis de Carné |
