Charles-Augustin Coulomb
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.031242
Today is the birthday of physicist Charles-Augustin de Coulomb, born in Angoulême, France, in 1736. He served as a military engineer in the West Indies before returning to France, where he performed his most famous research, including the formation of Coulomb’s law. In the late 1780s, he used sensitive instruments to measure the forces exerted by objects with varying electrical charges. Coulomb found that the force is proportional to the product of the charges and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between charges. In further research, he demonstrated a similar inverse-square relationship for magnetic poles and measured the frictional force in windmills. The most common unit of electrical charge is now called the coulomb. His name is engraved on the Eiffel Tower.
Date in History: 14 June 1736
