Jean-Baptiste Biot was born inParis on 21 April 1774 the son of Joseph Biot, a treasury official.[3]
He was educated at Lyceum Louis-le-Grand andÉcole Polytechnique in 1794.[4] Biot served in theartillery before he was appointed professor of mathematics atBeauvais in 1797. He later went on to become a professor of physics at theCollège de France around 1800, and three years later was elected as a member of theFrench Academy of Sciences. In July 1804, Biot joinedJoseph Louis Gay-Lussac for the first scientific hot-air balloon ride to measure how the Earth's magnetic field varies with elevation (NNDB 2009, Reese 2004,[5] O'Connor and Robertson 1997). They reached a height of 4000 metres (13,100 feet) (NNDB 2009, Reese 2004). Later, in Sept. 1804, a solo flight took Gay-Lussac up to 7010 metres (23,000 ft) (quite dangerous without supplementary oxygen (Reese 2004)).
Biot was also a member of theLegion of Honour; he was elected chevalier in 1814 and commander in 1849. In 1815, he was elected a Foreign Member of theRoyal Society of London,[6] in 1816 a member of theRoyal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and 1822 a Foreign Honorary Member of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences.[7] In addition, Biot received theRumford Medal in 1840, awarded by the Royal Society in the field of thermal or optical properties of matter. (O’Connor and Robertson 1997). In 1850 Jean-Baptiste Biot published in theJournal des savants a 7-page memoir from his recollections of the period of the late 1790s and early 1800s concerning his encounters withLaplace.[8][9]
Jean-Baptiste Biot had a single son,Édouard Constant Biot, an engineer and Sinologist, born in 1803. Edouard died in 1850 and his father made extraordinary efforts to ready for publication the second half of Edouard's last book, a reference translation of the Chinese classicTcheou-li. It had been left in manuscript, unfinished. To publish it in correct form, Jean-Baptiste Biot wrote, he had to consultStanislas Julien, the famous Sinologist, but also, especially for the translation of the most difficult part, theKaogongji, he himself visited many workshops and questioned artisans and craftsmen about their methods and vocabulary in order to verify his son's work. Biot's translation remains to this day the only translation into a Western language of this book.
Jean-Baptiste Biot made many contributions to the scientific community in his lifetime – most notably in optics, magnetism, and astronomy. In 1804, he used lines of equal magnetic field intensity in an article authored together with the Prussian naturalistAlexander von Humboldt.[10] TheBiot–Savart law in magnetism is named after Biot and his colleagueFélix Savart for their work in 1820.[11] 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 theAcadémie française to report back on 3000meteorites that fell onL'Aigle, inNormandy, France (seeL'Aigle (meteorite)). He found that the meteorites, called "stones" at the time, were from outer space.[12] With his report, Biot helped support the German physicistErnst Chladni's argument, published in 1794, that meteorites were debris from space.[13]
Biot in 1851
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 Ernst Chladni published a book claiming that such rocks had an extraterrestrial origin (Westrum). Only after Biot was able to analyse 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 theSolar 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 ofoptics, particularly thepolarization of light. Prior to the 19th century, light was believed to consist of discrete packets calledcorpuscles. During the early 19th century, many scientists began to disregard thecorpuscular theory in favor of thewave theory of light. Biot began his work on polarization to show that the results he was obtaining could appear only if light were made of corpuscles.
In 1815 he demonstrated that "polarized light, when passing through an organic substance, could be rotated clockwise or counterclockwise, dependent upon the optical axis of the material."[14][15] His work in chromatic polarization androtary 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.[16] The transverse-wave explanation byAugustin-Jean Fresnel is much simpler and is consistent with the equations ofJames Clerk Maxwell.
Biot's work on the polarization of light has led to many 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 allow the liquid crystal to modulate the intensity of the transmitted light. This happens as the liquid crystal's polarisation varies in response to an electric control signal applied across it.Polarizing filters are used extensively in photography to cut out unwanted reflections or to enhance reflection.
Potassium bitartrate was first discovered inside a wine container in Iran. The modern application of the substance began in 1768, and in 1832, Jean Baptiste Biot discovered the physical properties ofcream of tartar. The item gained most of its popularity when the French began using it frequently in their cooking.
^Daum, Andreas W. (2024).Alexander von Humboldt: A Concise Biography. Trans. Robert Savage. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. p. 106.ISBN978-0-691-24736-6.
^A joint Biot-Savart paper "Note sur le magnétisme de la pile de Volta" was published in theAnnales de chemie et de physique in 1820.
^J.B. Biot (1803)Relation d'un voyage fait dans le département de l'Orne, pour constater la réalité d'un météore observé à l'Aigle le 26 floréal an 11 [Account of a journey made in the department of the Orne [River], in order to ascertain the reality of a meteor observed in l'Aigle on the 26th of Floréal in the year 11 [Note: The date "26 floréal" on the title page is a typographical error; the meteor shower actually occurred on6 floréal (i.e., April 26, 1803) and everywhere else in the text the date "6 floréal" is given as the date of the meteor shower. (Paris, France: Baudouin, 1803).
^Chladni, Ernst Florens Friedrich,Über den Ursprung der von Pallas gefundenen und anderer ihr ähnlicher Eisenmassen und über einige damit in Verbindung stehende Naturerscheinungen [On the origin of the iron masses found byPallas and others similar to it, and on some natural phenomena associated with them] (Riga, Latvia:Johann Friedrich Hartknoch, 1794). Available on-line at:Saxon State and University Library at Dresden, Germany.
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 <https://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 <https://www.jstor.org/stable/284819>.
Levitt, Theresa (Sep 2003). "Biot's paper and Arago's plates. Photographic practice and the transparency of representation".Isis.94 (3):456–476.doi:10.1086/380654.PMID14626764.S2CID143943335.
