André-Marie Ampère (20 January 1775 – 10 June 1836) was a French physicist and mathematician who is generally regarded as one of the main discoverers of electromagnetism. The SI unit of measurement of electric current, the ampere, is named after him.Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre's recommendation obtained for Ampère the Lyon appointment, and afterwards (1805) a minor position in the polytechnic school at Paris, where he was appointed professor of mathematics in 1809. Here Ampère continued to pursue his scientific research and his diverse studies with unabated diligence. He was admitted as a member of the Institute in 1814.
Ampère's fame mainly rests on his establishing the relations between electricity and magnetism, and in developing the science of electromagnetism, or, as he called it, electrodynamics. On 11 September 1820 he heard of H. C. Ørsted's discovery that a magnetic needle is acted on by a voltaic current. Only a week later, on 18 September, Ampère presented a paper to the Academy containing a much more complete exposition of that and kindred phenomena. On the same day, Ampère also demonstrated before the Academy that parallel wires carrying currents attract or repel each other, depending on whether currents are in the same (attraction) or in opposite directions (repulsion). This laid the foundation of electrodynamics.
The topic of electromagnetism thus begun, Ampère developed a mathematical theory which not only described the electromagnetic phenomena already observed, but also predicted many new ones.
In 1828, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Science.
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