Jean-Baptiste Biot
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| Jean-Baptiste Biot | |
 Jean-Baptiste Biot
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| Born | 21 April 1774 Paris |
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| Died | 3 February 1862 Paris |
| Nationality | French |
| Fields | Physics, astronomy, and mathematics |
| Known for | Biot-Savart law |
| Influenced | Louis Pasteur, William Ritchie |
Jean-Baptiste Biot (21 April 1774 – 3 February 1862) was a French physicist, astronomer, and mathematician who established the reality of meteorites, made an early balloon flight, and studied the polarisation of light.
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[edit] Biography
Jean-Baptiste Biot was born in Paris, France on April 21, 1774 and died in Paris on February 3, 1862. He has one son, Edouard Constant Biot, in 1803. Biot served in the artillery before he was appointed professor of mathematics at Beauvais in 1797. He later went on to become a professor of physics at the College de France around 1800, and three years later was elected as a member of the Academy of Sciences. In 1804 Biot was on board for the first scientific hot-air balloon ride with Gay-Lussac (NNDB 2009, O’Connor and Robertson 1997). Biot was also a member of the Legion of Honor; he was elected chevalier in 1814 and commander in 1849. In addition, Biot received the Rumford Medal [link], awarded by the Royal Society in the field of thermal or optic properties of matter, in 1840 (O’Connor and Robertson 1997).
[edit] Biot's Paradigm
Jean-Baptiste Biot made many contributions to the scientific community in his lifetime, changing the paradigm of physics, as Thomas Kuhn would say. These include optics, magnetism, and astronomy. The Biot-Savart Law in magnetism is named after Biot and his colleague Felix Savart for their work in 1820. 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). In 1803 Biot was sent by the French Academy to report back on 3000 meteorites that fell on L’Aigle, France (Meteorite). He found that the meteorites, or stones at the time, were from outer space. With his report, Biot helped support Ernst Florens Friedrich Chladni's argument that meteorites were debris from space, which he had published in 1794. Biot also helped further the field of optics in 1815 with a study in polarized light. In his experiment Biot studied the effects of polarized light as it penetrated organic substances and determined that light “could be rotated clockwise or counterclockwise, dependent upon the optical axis of the material” (Molecular).
[edit] Science and the French Revolution
Jean-Baptiste Biot did most of his research after the French Revolution; an armed conflict in which the bourgeoisies overthrew the aristocracy due to a failure in policy reform that left the common French man struggling to survive. King Louis XVI became king amid massive debt due to France’s participation in the Seven Years’ War, and investing in the American Revolution. Louis XVI did little to solve the problem except to heavily tax the already struggling bourgeoisies, a decision that later led to his overthrow and execution. The bourgeoisies then took over control of France and began to reorganize all French institutions that were associated with the former aristocracy, including science. Science had long been an activity that only the most affluent members of French society could pursue, such as Antoine Lavoisier; but once changes to the structure of society began to take place, more opportunities for the common man to participate in science began to appear. In fact, the opening up of science went along with the ultimate goal of the bourgeoisies to create an enlightened society built upon John Locke’s ideas of equality. In reforming French science, research interests shifted from more mathematical disciplines such as physics to the more observational ones such as the natural sciences, as they were more open to the common people. As Charles Gillespie wrote:
“Science was undemocratic in principle, not a liberating force of enlightenment, but a stubborn bastion of aristocracy, a tyranny of intellectual- and especially mathematical-pretension, stifling civic virtue and true productivity, drawing a veil of obscurity between nature and the people.”
But the revolution did not just aim to heighten the freedoms of French citizens; it also aimed to create equality amongst all disciplines, while making sure that no discipline overstepped its bounds. The French effectively elevated the power of science through it’s restructuring, while making sure it still had limits. They even contributed to our definition of what science is compared to the humanities, keeping scientific limitations from the abstract concepts of the arts.
[edit] Biot's Legacy
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 German physicist Chladni published a book claiming that rocks had an extraterrestrial origin (Westrum). Only after Biot was able to analyze 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. In 1812, Biot turned his attention to the study of optics, particularly the polarization of light. Prior to the 19th century, light was believed to consist of discrete packets called corpuscles. During the early 19th century, many scientists began to disregard the corpuscular theory in favor of the wave theory of light. Biot began his work on polarization to show that the results he was obtaining could only happen if light were made of corpuscles. His work in chromatic polarization and rotary polarization greatly advanced the field of optics, although it was later shown that his findings could also be obtained using the wave theory of light (Frankel). Biot’s work on the polarization of light has lead to significant breakthroughs in the field of optics. Liquid crystal displays (LCDs), such as television and computer screens, use light that is polarized by a filter as it enters the liquid crystal to provide a clearer picture. Polarizing lenses are used extensively in photography to cut out unwanted reflections or to enhance reflection.
[edit] Selected writings
- 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)
[edit] See also
[edit] References
Margadant, JB. 2006. The post-revolutionary self: Politics and psyche in France 1750-1850. American Historical Review. 15 June 2009
Vick, B. 2009. The Political Economy of Virtue: Luxury, Patriotism, and the Origins of the French Revolution. English Historical Review. 15 June 2009
Jones, PM. 2009. The Path Not Taken: French Industrialization in the age of Revolution, 1750-1830. English Historical Review.15 June 2009
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 <http://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 <http://www.jstor.org/stable/284819>.
Parsley, Robert J. “THE BIOT-SAVART OPERATOR AND ELECTRODYNAMICS ON BOUNDED SUBDOMAINS OF THE THREE-SPHERE”. University of Pennsylvania. <www.wfu.edu/~parslerj/research/dissertation.parsley.pdf>
[edit] Further reading
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Jean-Baptiste Biot |
- Crosland, M.P. (1970-80). "Biot, Jean-Baptiste". Dictionary of Scientific Biography. 2. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 133-140. ISBN 0684101149.
- 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, The History of Meteoritics and Key Meteorite Collections, Geological Society of London, pp. 73 – 89, http://books.google.com/books?id=7SvtVoa1W-cC&printsec=frontcover&dq=The+history+of+meteoritics+and+key+meteorite+collections#PPA73,M2
- Levitt, Theresa (Sep 2003). "Biot's paper and Arago's plates. Photographic practice and the transparency of representation". Isis 94 (3): 456 – 476. PMID 14626764. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14626764.
[edit] External links
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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Jean-Baptiste Biot |
- O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Jean-Baptiste Biot", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive.
| Preceded by Charles Lacretelle Jeune |
Seat 12 Académie française 1856–1862 |
Succeeded by Louis de Carné |
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