Jean-Baptiste Biot

Infobox Scientist
name = Jean-Baptiste Biot
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image_width =150px
caption = Jean-Baptiste Biot
birth_date = 21 April 1774
birth_place = Paris
death_date = 3 February 1862
death_place = Paris
residence =
citizenship =
nationality = French
ethnicity =
field = physicist, astronomer and mathematician
work_institutions =
alma_mater =
doctoral_advisor =
doctoral_students = William Ritchie
known_for = Biot-Savart law
author_abbrev_bot =
author_abbrev_zoo =
influences = Pasteur
influenced =
prizes =
religion =
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Jean-Baptiste Biot (21 April 1774, Paris – 3 February 1862, Paris) was a French physicist, astronomer and mathematician.

Life

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

* [http://gallica.bnf.fr/notice?N=FRBNF37257980 Traité élémentaire d'astronomie physique] (Klostermann, 1810-1811)
* [http://gallica.bnf.fr/notice?N=FRBNF30107176 Traité de physique expérimentale et mathématique] ( Deterville, 1816)
* [http://gallica.bnf.fr/notice?N=FRBNF30107153 Précis de l'histoire de l'astronomie chinoise] (impr. impériale, 1861)
* [http://gallica.bnf.fr/notice?N=FRBNF35395244 Études sur l'astronomie indienne et sur l'astronomie chinoise] (Lévy frères, 1862)
* [http://books.google.com/books?id=jm4tAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA1&dq=%22Jean-Baptiste+Biot%22&hl=fr Mélanges scientifiques et littéraires] (Lévy frères, 1858)
* [http://books.google.com/books?id=KhoGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA1&dq=%22Jean-Baptiste+Biot%22&hl=fr#PPR3,M1 Recherches sur plusieurs points de l'astronomie égyptienne] (Didot, 1823)

References

*Citation
id = PMID:14626764
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14626764
last=Levitt
first=Theresa
publication-date=2003 Sep
year=2003
title=Biot's paper and Arago's plates. Photographic practice and the transparency of representation.
volume=94
issue=3
periodical=Isis; an international review devoted to the history of science and its cultural influences
pages=456-76

Further reading

DSB
first=M.P.
last=Crosland
title=Biot, Jean-Baptiste
volume=2
pages=133-140

External links

* [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02576a.htm Catholic Enyclopedia article]
*