Jean Baptiste Biot

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.

External links:

• Biography of Jean-Baptiste Biot (http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Biot)