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Re: Jean-Baptiste Biot (a really really old geezer)

Looking at other sources seem to overwhelming show 1774 as the birth date.

I misread one of the two sources I looked out (the link below), no doubt
from the power of suggestion from the misprint in the textbook source. No
wonder I was astounded.

thanks for the correction, though my E&M class would be a bit more fun if it
were true.

Joel R

-----Original Message-----
From: Hugh Haskell [mailto:hhaskell@MINDSPRING.COM]
Sent: Thursday, January 23, 2003 2:45 PM
To: PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu
Subject: Re: Jean-Baptiste Biot (a really really old geezer)


At 14:32 -0600 1/23/03, RAUBER, JOEL wrote:

For your amusement, I just came across an astounding item.
One I wasn't
aware of, probably some of you already know this.

Biot of the Biot and Savart law lived to be 118 years Old!!!

(And who says E&M isn't good for you).

I saw this in two sources.
One of which is

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02576a.htm

The other is a footnote in the new E&M book by Pollack & Stump

The Universe never ceases to amaze.

I suspect somebody read a nine for a six in his death date. According
to Asimov's Biorphical Encyclopedia, Biot's dates were 1774-1862,
which still a not-too-shabby 88. I hope I last that long. These dates
are confirmed by the Cambridge Dictionary of Scientists (1996), The
Oxford Dictionary of Scientists (1999), and the Larousse Dictionary
of Scientists (1994). Unless, of course, they all got their
information from Asimov's book which was published in 1982.

Hugh
--

Hugh Haskell
<mailto:haskell@ncssm.edu>
<mailto:hhaskell@mindspring.com>

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