"Ampere was the Newton of Electricity"

James Clerk Maxwell’s comparison of André-Marie Ampère to Isaac Newton is a profound recognition of Ampère’s transformative impact on the field of electricity. Newton redefined the understanding of motion and gravitation through a mathematical framework that unified terrestrial and celestial mechanics; his laws became foundational principles shaping all future work in physics. By calling Ampère the “Newton of Electricity,” Maxwell acknowledges how Ampère rendered similar service to the field of electrodynamics.

Ampère’s pioneering investigations in the early 19th century established the fundamental laws governing the interaction of electric currents. Prior to Ampère, electricity and magnetism were studied largely as isolated phenomena; there was little understanding of the underlying principles connecting them. Through a series of ingenious experiments, Ampère demonstrated that electric currents interact in ways analogous to Newton’s forces between masses, currents in wires attract or repel much like gravitating bodies, only with an entirely new kind of force.

More importantly, Ampère expressed these new laws in precise mathematical terms. He articulated the mathematical relationship between electric currents and the magnetic fields they produce, a framework now enshrined in “Ampère’s law.” This achievement is strikingly parallel to Newton’s mathematical formulation of gravity. Ampère identified deep unifying principles, showed their universality, and captured them in equations that could be used to predict phenomena well beyond the original experiments.

Maxwell’s analogy also hints at the historical influence of Ampère’s work. Just as Newton’s mechanics became the canon for centuries, Ampère’s insights paved the way for the entire framework of classical electromagnetism, culminating in Maxwell’s own field equations later in the 19th century, which unified electricity, magnetism, and optics. In sum, equating Ampère with Newton signals Ampère’s role as an originator of foundational laws, a scientific architect whose ideas made possible much of modern physics.