Biot–Savart law
Ley de Biot-Savart
- Date
- 1820 · confidence high
- Place
- French Academy of Sciences, Paris, France
- Credited to
- Jean-Baptiste Biot and Félix Savart (mathematical formulation by Pierre-Simon Laplace)
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
By measuring the force of a current-carrying wire on a magnetised needle, Biot and Savart established how the magnetic field falls off with distance; Laplace gave it its general mathematical form.
What it led to
- Calculation of the magnetic field of any current distribution
- The electrodynamics of Ampère and Maxwell