Charles Augustin de Coulomb — страница 3

  • Просмотров 1886
  • Скачиваний 54
  • Размер файла 19
    Кб

submitted to the Académie des Sciences between 1785 and 1791. These seven papers are discussed in [6] where the author shows that Coulomb:- ... had obtained some remarkable results by using the torsion balance method: law of attraction and repulsion, the electric point charges, magnetic poles, distribution of electricity on the surface of charged bodies and others. The importance of Coulomb's law for the development of electromagnetism is examined and discussed. In these he developed a theory of attraction and repulsion between bodies of the same and opposite electrical charge. He demonstrated an inverse square law for such forces and went on to examine perfect conductors and dielectrics. He suggested that there was no perfect dielectric, proposing that every substance has a

limit above which it will conduct electricity. These fundamental papers put forward the case for action at a distance between electrical charges in a similar way as Newton's theory of gravitation was based on action at a distance between masses. These papers on electricity and magnetism, although the most important of Coulomb's work over this period, were only a small part of the work he undertook. He presented twenty-five memoirs to the Académie des Sciences between 1781 and 1806. Coulomb worked closely with Bossut, Borda, de Prony, and Laplace over this period. Remarkably he participated in the work of 310 committees of the Academy. He still was involved with engineering projects as a consultant, the most dramatic of which was his report on canal and harbour improvements in

Brittany in 1783-84. He had been pressed into this task against his better judgement and he ended up taking the blame when criticisms were made and he spent a week in prison in November 1783. He also undertook services for the respective French governments in such varied fields as education and reform of hospitals. In 1787 he made a trip to England to report on the conditions in the hospitals of London. In July 1784 he was appointed to look after the royal fountains and took charge of a large part of the water supply of Paris. On 26 February 1790 Coulomb's first son was born, although he was not married to Louise Françoise LeProust Desormeaux who was the mother of his son. When the French Revolution began in 1789 Coulomb had been deeply involved with his scientific work. Many

institutions were reorganised, not all to Coulomb's liking, and he retired from the Corps du Génie in 1791. At about the same time that the Académie des Sciences was abolished in August 1783, he was removed from his role in charge of the water supply and, in December 1793, the weights and measures committee on which he was serving was also disbanded. Coulomb and Borda retired to the country to do scientific research in a house he owned near Blois. The Académie des Sciences was replaced by the Institut de France and Coulomb returned to Paris when he was elected to the Institute in December 1795. On 30 July 1797 his second son was born and, in 1802, he married Louise Françoise LeProust Desormeaux, the mother of his two sons. We mentioned above that Coulomb was involved with

services to education. These were largely between 1802 and 1806 when he was inspector general of public instruction and, in that role, he was mainly responsible for setting up the lycées across France. Let us end with quoting the tribute paid to him by Biot who wrote:- It is to Borda and to Coulomb that one owes the renaissance of true physics in France, not a verbose and hypothetical physics, but that ingenious and exact physics which observes and compares all with rigour. J J O'Connor and E F Robertson