Charles Auguste Pendant

Charles Auguste pendant was born June 14, 1736 in the town of Angouleme in the south of France to a wealthy family. After studying mathematics and natural sciences in Paris, he chose a military career.

As a technical officer led the fortification works on the island of Martinique, where he stayed for nine years. Already during his stay in Martinique, he began to engage in scientific research, which is concerned mainly technical mechanics and some problems of statics.

In 1776, he returned to France, he took part in the contest, announced by the French Academy of Sciences and dedicated to the improvement of navigation devices. Pendant successfully solved the task and simultaneously engaged in a thorough study of magnetism, especially the study of the properties of magnets, depending on the temperature.

For successful work on the creation of a new design of the compass and the development of the theory of simple machines in 1782, he was elected member of the Academy. Although he remained military to have the best opportunities for experimentation, his name became known in the scientific world.

In 1784 Coulomb published a paper in which they described the dependence of the force detected by twisting strands of its diameter, length, angle of twist, and by a constant that depends on the physical properties of the fiber material. At the same time he described a method for measuring small forces with the help of the so-called torsion balance, later named Coulomb weights.

From 1785 to 1789, he published seven major works on electricity and magnetism. Torsion balance Coulomb also used to measure the force with which the two interact point electric charge. He determined that this force is directly proportional to the amount of the charges and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.

This first quantitative relationship obtained was then tested pendants and other methods. Pendant then found that the electric charge is not redistributed in the bodies depending on their chemical nature, and moves when touched from one body to another as a result of the electrical repulsive forces.

He also explained that the electrostatic field strength at a point close to the surface of a charged conductor is proportional to the density of electrical charges near this point.

In addition to the scientific work, pendant and engaged in social activities - it held a significant position in the Ministry of Education and the position of general superintendent of water resources and sources. Later, however, he fell out of favor with senior government officials, and stopped any public activity.

When in 1789 the French Revolution broke out, he retired to his estate in Blois, where devoted himself entirely to scientific work. In the same year he released his important work, in which he expanded the idea of ​​the existence of two kinds of electricity to magnetism and formulated the law, according to which the interaction of the two magnetic poles similar to the interaction of two point electric charges.

Pendant with their scientific work contributed to the science of electricity and magnetism quantitative method of research and promote the principles of Newtonian mechanics, electricity and magnetism.

His torsion balances have been successfully used in the most subtle instrumentation and other areas of physics. After coming to power of Napoleon Coulomb all his positions, in which he remained until the end of his life had been returned.

Pendant Died August 23, 1806 in Paris.