Biography of charles augustin de coulomb atom
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Charles Augustin de Coulomb.
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| (source) | Charles-Augustin Coulomb (14 Jun 1736 - 23 Aug 1806) French physicist who was a civil engineer in his early career, and later conducted experiments on electricity, for which he is best known. The SI unit of charge was named for him. Short biography of Charles-Augustin Coulomb >> |
by John Munro
from Pioneers of Electricity; or, Short Lives of the Great Electricians (1890)
[p.79] Coulomb has been regarded as the pioneer of experimental science in France, as William Gilbert was in England. The fame of both rests principally on their electrical and magnetic researches. Gilbert, the physician, who flourished two centuries earlier, obtained results which were chiefly qualitative. Coulomb, the mathematician and engineer, with the love of definition and the habit of measurement, inheriting the advances which had been made meanwhile, arrived at quantitative results. He gauged the forces of attraction and repulsion between electrified bodies or magnetic poles, and formulated the laws which governed them.
Charles Augustin de Coulomb was born at Angoulême, on June 14th, 1736, of a good family belonging to Montpelier, which had furnished members to the provincial parliam
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Charles-Augustin de Coulomb
French physicist (1736–1806)
Charles-Augustin de Coulomb (KOO-lom, -lohm, koo-LOM, -LOHM;[1]French:[kulɔ̃]; 14 June 1736 – 23 August 1806) was a French officer, engineer, and physicist. He is best known as the eponymous discoverer of what is now called Coulomb's law, the description of the electrostatic force of attraction and repulsion. He also did important work on friction, and his work on earth pressure formed the basis for the later development of much of the science of soil mechanics.
The SI unit of electric charge, the coulomb, was named in his honor in 1880.[2]
Life
[edit]Charles-Augustin de Coulomb was born in Angoulême, Angoumois county, France, to Henry Coulomb, an inspector of the royal demesne originally from Montpellier, and Catherine Bajet. He was baptised at the parish church of St. André. The family moved to Paris early in his childhood, and he studied at Collège Mazarin. His studies included philosophy, language and literature. He also received a good education in mathematics, astronomy, chemistry and botany. When his father suffered a financial setback, he was forced to leave Paris, and went to Montpellier. Coulomb submitted his first publication to the Society of Sciences in