André-Marie Ampère
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The physicist who turned Ørsted's observation into electrodynamics, and who first drew the distinction between current and voltage.
Ørsted's experiment was reproduced at the Paris Academy in September 1820; Ampère presented his first reflections on it a week later and spent the following six years turning it into mathematics. The speed matters less than the difference in kind: Ørsted observed that a current deflects a needle, and Ampère produced a theory that predicted by how much. Separating current from voltage is the distinction every practical electrical measurement rests on, and the unit of the first carries his name.
Also known as: ampere, ampère, ampere's law, electrodynamics
Sources
- Britannica on Ampère: founder of electrodynamics, extending Ørsted's 1820 result into a mathematical and physical theory, and the 1827 memoir on the mathematical theory of electrodynamic phenomena
- CIGRE: Ampère presented his first reflections on the equivalence between magnets and currents at the Paris Academy on 18 September 1820, a week after Ørsted's experiment was reproduced there, and was the first to clearly distinguish current from voltage