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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2009
The early years of the nineteenth century were a time of new life and fresh thought in the scientific institutions of England and France. Despite the domination of the public scene by the rise and fall of Napoleon, scientists in the two countries were able to share their discoveries and work together. Napoleon even encouraged this; for example, foreigners were not barred from competing for the scientific prizes he offered. At a time when many of his compatriots were detained in France, Sir Humphry Davy was given special permission to travel freely because the object of his journey was scientific. His travels in France gave Davy the opportunity of meeting many of his most eminent contemporaries. The best scientific work in Europe was being done in Paris at the Collège de France and at the Ecole Polytechnique. H. R. Yorke, an English journalist in Paris in 1814, in spite of his prejudice against the Institut National affirms that ‘it is but a tribute of justice which every man owes to superiour genius to declare that in point of real science or experimental philosophy France is Without a Rival’.
1 Yorke, H. R.: Letters from France (London, 1814), ii, 336.Google Scholar
2 Paris, J. A., Life of Sir Humphry Davy (London, 1831), ii, 10.Google Scholar
3 de Launay, L., Correspondance du Grand Ampère (3 vols, Paris, 1936 and 1943.Google Scholar Published by the Société des Amis d'André-Marie Ampère), 355.
4 Annales de Chimie, xci, 98Google Scholar; xciii, 41.
5 Correspondance, 430.Google Scholar
6 Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 1813, 265.Google Scholar
7 Correspondance, 414.Google Scholar
8 Ibid., 444.
9 Ibid., 462.
10 Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc., 1814, 74Google Scholar; Annales de Chimie, lxxxviii, 322Google Scholar
11 Annales de Chimie, lxxxviii, 311 and 319.Google Scholar
12 Paris, op. cit., ii, 23.Google Scholar
13 One year of this diary was published by John Britton under the title Narrative of Memorable Events in Paris (London, 1828).Google Scholar
14 Davy, J., Memoirs of the Life of Sir Humphry Davy (London, 1836), ii, 142.Google Scholar
15 Correspondance, 562.Google Scholar
16 Manuscript letter: Ampère to Wollaston, 11 October 1820. Royal Society reference AP. 9.2.
17 Correspondance, 563.Google Scholar
18 Ibid., 909. This letter is dated by Faraday 2 February 1821, but since it refers to experiments on rotation which he did not perform until the autumn of 1821, it seems probable that he misdated the letter 1821 instead of 1822.
Cf. Jones, H. Bence, Life and Letters of Faraday (London, 1870), i, 339.Google Scholar
19 Joubert, J., Collection de Mémoires Relatif à la Physique (Paris, 1885), ii, 192.Google Scholar
This experiment Faraday must have performed early in 1822, after vol. xii of the Quarterly Journal had gone to press. He wrote to Ampère: ‘I took a piece of copper wire similar in form to the magnet and having floated it upright in mercury placed a little cup on the top to contain a globule of mercury and then connected the voltaic piles just as they were with the magnet then placing the pole of a strong magnet beneath the cup containing the mercury. It when exactly in line with the axis of the wire made it rotate slowly on its own axis.’ This appears to be directly contradicted by Faraday's statement in a letter to Richard Phillips, dated 10 May 1836, in which he says: ‘I did not realize the rotations of the electromagnetic wire round its axis; that fact was discovered by M. Ampère at a later date …’ (Faraday, Experimental Researches, ii, 231Google Scholar). From this it is clear that his denial refers only to the October experiments which appeared in the Quarterly Journal, vol. xii, 74 ff.Google Scholar The only explanation of this discrepancy appears to be that Faraday did not consider it worth publishing this experiment once he found that Ampère had already made the discovery and announced it publicly.
20 Jones, Bence, op. cit., i 355.Google Scholar
21 Correspondance, 576.Google Scholar
22 Cf. the analysis of Ampère's early notions in Tricker, R. A. R., ‘Early Electrodynamics’Google Scholar, and also in Williams, L. Pearce, ‘Ampère's Electrodynamic Molecular Model’, in Contemporary Physics, iv, 119.Google Scholar
23 Correspondance, 928.Google Scholar
24 Ibid., 630.
25 Cf. History of Science, i (Cambridge, 1962), 6Google Scholar, where L. Pearce Williams draws attention to the fact that Faraday never did accept Ampère's theory.
26 Manuscript letter: Ampère to Herschel, 25 October 1825. Royal Society reference HS. 1.394.
27 Correspondance, 922.Google Scholar
28 Joubert, , op. cit., ii, 332.Google Scholar
29 Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc., 1825, 467.Google Scholar
30 As note 26.
31 Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc., 1826, 494.Google Scholar
Manuscript letter: Ampère to Babbage, 17 November 1825. British Museum reference 37183, f.303.
32 Correspondance, 688.Google Scholar
33 Ibid., 763.
34 Ibid., 788.
35 Manuscript letter: Faraday to Ampère, 17 November 1825, in the Burndy Library, Connecticut, U.S.A.
36 Quarterly Journal of Science and Arts, xvi, 342.Google Scholar
37 Bulletin Universel, 1827.Google Scholar
38 As note 35.
39 Manuscript letter: Ampère to Herschel 16 September, 1827. Royal Society reference HS. 1.395.
40 As note 39.
41 Manuscript letter: Ampère to Gay-Lussac, 19 August 1828. Cambridge University Library reference 4251(21). This is a letter of recommendation for an Englishman, Barry, who wanted to use some apparatus in Paris. As Ampère did not understand English well, he did not know the exact nature of Barry's request.
42 Dr. Tricker presents a strong case for the inclusion of Ampère's work in the teaching of electrodynamics. See Tricker, R. A. R., ‘On the Teaching of Electricity—III’ in the School Science Review, xxxvi (1955), 213Google Scholar, and also by the same author ‘Ampère as a Contemporary Physicist’ in Contemporary Physics, iii (1962), 453.Google Scholar
43 Maxwell, J. C., Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism (Oxford, 1873), 162.Google Scholar