Charles-Augustin de Coulomb

Charles-Augustin de Coulomb was an eighteenth-century French physicist and engineer whose quantitative studies of electricity, magnetism, and friction helped establish experimental physics.

Coulomb's law: The law stating that the electrostatic force between two point charges is proportional to their product and inversely proportional to their squared separation. Coulomb used torsion-balance measurements to establish this quantitative rule for electric force.
École royale du génie de Mézières: A French military engineering school founded in 1748 at Mézières. Coulomb trained there before beginning his career as a military engineer.
Charles du Fay: An eighteenth-century French chemist who proposed that electricity involved two distinct kinds of charge. His two-fluid theory framed debates about electrical phenomena before Coulomb’s measurements.
Coulomb: The SI unit of electric charge, equal to the charge transported by one ampere in one second. The unit commemorates Coulomb’s foundational quantitative work on electrical forces.
Torsion balance: An instrument that measures small forces by the twist of a suspended fiber or wire. Coulomb’s apparatus inferred force from the wire’s resistance to twisting.
French military engineering: The design and construction of fortifications, roads, and other works for France’s armed forces. Coulomb’s early professional work belonged to this engineering tradition.
Benjamin Franklin: An American statesman and scientist who developed a one-fluid account of electricity and identified positive and negative charge. Franklin’s electrical theory contrasted with the two-fluid account Coulomb’s era inherited.
Electrostatics: The study of electric charges at rest and the forces and fields they produce. Coulomb’s measurements became a cornerstone of this branch of physics.
Electrostatic force: The force of attraction or repulsion between electrically charged objects. This was the interaction Coulomb measured and expressed mathematically.
Fortification: A defensive military structure designed to resist attack and control strategic positions. Coulomb’s engineering career included practical work on fortifications.

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