Note: we inadvertently posted the January 20 episode yesterday. That episode has been replaced with the correct one, so if you want to hear the real January 19th episode, scroll down to the previous post and listen “again.” Apologies for the error and any confusion.

It’s Cake and Candles today for André-Marie Ampère. He was an advanced mathematician by the time he turned 12, and when he was 18 he estimated that he’d learned everything there was to learn about electricity and electromagnetism at that time.

So, as one does, he continued his studies and expanded that branch of science, and beccame a full professor of physics at the Polytechnical school in Paris, even though he had very little formal education to that point. Many of his discoveries led to enormous breakthroughs in the use of electricity and electromagnetism for generations to come.