Ampersand©

French mathematician, physicist, historian, poet and philosopher André-Marie Ampère was born in 1775, in an age of English smallpox and German loss of interest in burning witches.

His life as a polymath may be celebrated as one of the most influential not only in physics, but in many lesser appreciated fields. He is of course best known for his formulation of Ampère's law, which forms one of Maxwell's four equations, the cornerstones on which all of electromagnetism rests. May I remind you, electromagnetism is not just sparks and magnets, it's practically every force you ever experience (except gravity and power metal). It is all of biology, it is all of chemistry. It is all of so many things.

His second greatest achievement however, of which many people are unaware, was that of the invention of the Ampersand©, &©. The Ampersand© is a symbol strictly limited to use by physicists &© historians. Its function is remarkably similar to common addition, and indeed was originally coined by Ampère as a shorthand for mathematics involving summation, especially over indices, until a more concise notation was developed by Albert Einstein in the early twentieth century. It was only until the mid-nineteenth century after Ampère's death, that British snobbery against the French and "The Institute" led the Royal Institution of Great Britian, an influencial scientific establishment, to call for the replacement of the Ampersand© in scientific notation with the capital sigma, Σ, through a cleverly executed campaign of ridicule and bullying of many prominent scientists of the day. Although unverified, it is commonly believed that the term Ampersand© is derived from a corruption of the term "Ampère's And".

The Ampersand© would probably not have come to be so widely recognised had it not been for Ampère's admittance to "The Institute" in 1814. Originally reccommended by Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre, it is believed that "The Institute" was reluctant to grant Ampère membership until to sweeten the deal, Ampère sold them the copyright to the Ampersand©.

This was not to be the last of André-Marie Ampère's achievements, however. In later years, after the death of Ampère's wife Julie Carron in 1804, the man was said to become increasingly lonely. He adopted two cats, and, distressed at their lack of mobility and freedom, invented the cat flap.