1736-1806

French Physicist and Engineer

Charles Augustin Coulomb was one of eighteenth-century Europe's greatest engineers. However, he is better known for inventing the torsion balance and discovering the inverse-square laws of attraction and repulsion for both electric and magnetic phenomena.

Coulomb was born in Angoulême, France on June 14, 1736. His family moved to Paris where he attended lectures at the Collège Mazarin and Collège de France. Following his father to Montpellier, he joined the Société des Sciences de Montpellier (1757). He entered the Ecole du Génie at Mézières (1761) to train as a military engineer and graduated a First Lieutenant in the Corps du Génie. Coulomb served at Brest (1761-1764) before being posted to Martinique (1764-1772). French postings at Bouchain, Cherbourg, and Rochefort followed before his election to the Académie des Sciences (1781) assured him permanent residence in Paris...