Coulomb, Charles Augustin de, << koo LAWM, sharl oh goos TAN duh >> (1736-1806), a French scientist, inventor, and army engineer, made fundamental contributions in the fields of friction, electricity, and magnetism. He formulated Coulomb’s law, which states that the force between two electric or magnetic charges varies inversely as the square of the distance between them. He invented a number of instruments for measuring magnetic and electric forces. He also published papers on friction in machinery. The unit for the quantity for an electric charge, the coulomb, was named in his honor.
Coulomb was born on June 14, 1736, in Angouleme. He was educated in Paris and entered the French Army. After nine years of army service in the Caribbean, he devoted himself to scientific research. Coulomb died on Aug. 23, 1806.
