Jean-Baptiste Biot

Jean-Baptiste Biot (1774 to 1862) was a French mathematician, physicist and astronomer, born in Paris. After studies at Louis-le-Grand and brief army service he entered the Ecole Polytechnique, where Gaspard Monge recognised his talent, and he went on to teach mathematics at Beauvais and then physics at the College de France, and was elected to the Academy of Sciences in 1803. He worked across astronomy, elasticity, electricity and magnetism, heat, optics and geometry. With Felix Savart he gave the Biot-Savart law relating electric current to magnetic field, his 1803 report on the stones that fell at L'Aigle helped establish that meteorites come from outside the Earth, and in 1804 he flew with Gay-Lussac in one of the first scientific balloon ascents. He also studied the polarisation of light, and the unit of current called the biot is named after him.