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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
References
Further reading
Crosland, M.P. (1970-80). "Biot, Jean-Baptiste". Dictionary of Scientific Biography 2. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 133-140. ISBN 0684101149.
External links
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