The Jean Baptiste Biot reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004
(provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Jean Baptiste Biot

Image:Jbiot.jpg
Jean-Baptiste Biot (April 21 1774, Paris-February 3 1862, Paris) was a French physicist and mathematician who in the early 1800s studied the relationship between electrical current and magnetism (see Biot-Savart's Law), as well as the polarisation of light passing through chemical solutions.

He was the first person to discover the optical difference of mica, and therefor the mineral biotite was named after him.

In 1804 he made a hot-air balloon ascent with Joseph Gay-Lussac to a height of five kilometres in an early investigation of the Earth's atmosphere.

See also: Early flying machines

External links:

This article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.