Page "André-Marie Ampère" Paragraph 2

Ampère was born on 20 January 1775 to Jean-Jacques Ampère, a prosperous businessman, and Jeanne Antoinette Desutières-Sarcey Ampère during the height of the French Enlightenment.

He spent his childhood and adolescence at the family property at Poleymieux-au-Mont-d ' Or near Lyon.

Jean-Jacques Ampère, a successful merchant, was an admirer of the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose theories of education ( as outlined in his treatise Émile ) were the basis of Ampère ’ s education.

Rousseau believed that young boys should avoid formal schooling and pursue instead an “ education direct from nature .” Ampère ’ s father actualized this ideal by allowing his son to educate himself within the walls of his well-stocked library.

French Enlightenment masterpieces such as Georges-Louis Leclerc, comte de Buffon ’ s Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière ( begun in 1749 ) and Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d ' Alembert ’ s Encyclopédie ( volumes added between 1751 and 1772 ) thus became Ampère ’ s schoolmasters.

The young Ampère, however, soon resumed his Latin lessons, which enable him to master the works of Leonhard Euler and Daniel Bernoulli.