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Charles-Augustin de Coulomb Facts & Worksheets

Charles-Augustin de Coulomb was a highly regarded French physicist. He developed Coulomb's law and proposed ground-breaking theories on the force between electrical charges, magnetic attraction, and repulsion.

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Charles-Augustin de Coulomb was a highly regarded French physicist. He developed Coulomb’s law and proposed ground-breaking theories on the force between electrical charges, magnetic attraction, and repulsion. He is commemorated by the Coulomb, a unit of measurement. 

See the fact file below for more information on Charles-Augustin de Coulomb, or you can download our 27-page Charles-Augustin de Coulomb worksheet pack to utilize within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION

  • Charles-Augustin de Coulomb was born on June 14, 1736, in Angoulême, France, and became one of the most influential scientists in the early discovery of electricity. 
  • His parents, lawyer Henri Coulomb and Catherine Bajet were from well-established aristocratic families in Angoulême, France. 
  • His family soon relocated to Paris, where he studied mathematics at the Collège des Quatre-Nations.
  • Coulomb entered military school in 1759 and graduated from Mézières’ Royal Engineering School (École royale du génie de Mézières) in 1761. 
  • Coulomb began his career in structural design and soil mechanics. He was stationed in a variety of locales throughout the following 20 years. 
  • He spent nine years in Martinique, West Indies, beginning in 1764, and was in charge of constructing Fort Bourbon.
  • Coulomb returned to France in 1773 after being ill with a fever and began some of his most important work on applied mechanics. 
  • The same year, he delivered his first scientific work, “Statistical Problems Applied to Architecture,” to the Académie des Sciences. 
  • The Académie was greatly pleased by his use of mathematics to overcome many disparities in engineering challenges.
  • Coulomb was dispatched to Rochefort, France, in 1779 to supervise the construction of a wooden fort. 
  • During this period, Coulomb researched friction and rope stiffness at the shipyards in Rochefort.
  • These investigations led to his main work, Theorie des Machines Simples (“Theory of Simple Machines”), published in 1781, which earned him the Académie des Sciences’ Grand Prix.
  • The same year, Coulomb was commissioned to report on the viability of a navigable canal in Brittany. 
  • He criticized the scheme as costly and inefficient, but the French bureaucracy viewed it differently and temporarily fined him. 
  • Coulomb resigned in protest, but his resignation was rejected. When asked to reassess the project, he reached the same findings. 
  • An independent assessment verified that he was correct, and he was paid for his efforts, but the experience soured him, and he committed his attention to the study of physics from that point on.
  • Coulomb published a study on the elasticity of wires under twisting force in 1784. 
  • This resulted in his well-known work of torsion balancing, which was later used to calculate the density of the earth. 
  • But de Coulomb utilized the approach most efficiently to measure the forces of frictional electricity and magnetism.
  • Coulomb published seven important articles on electricity and magnetism between 1785 and 1791. 
  • This motivated him to formulate the theory known as Coulomb’s Law, which states that the force between two electrical charges is proportional to their product and inversely correlated to the square of their distance.

CONTRIBUTIONS AND ACHIEVEMENTS

  • As a result of his attempts to examine the law of electrical repulsions proposed by English scientist Joseph Priestley, Charles-Augustin de Coulomb developed his law. 
  • During this time, he developed sensitive instruments to analyze the electrical forces associated with Priestley’s law. Coulomb published his theories between 1785 and 1809.
  • He also discovered the inverse square law of magnetic pole attraction and repulsion. 
  • This supplied the groundwork for French mathematician Siméon-Denis Poisson’s mathematical explanation of magnetic forces. 
  • Coulomb conducted substantial research on machinery friction, the elasticity of metal and silk fibers, and windmills. 
  • He inspired the Coulomb, a SI unit of electric charge.
  • French engineer and physicist Charles de Coulomb made pioneering discoveries in electricity and magnetism and came up with the theory called Coulomb’s Law.

LATER YEARS AND DEATH

  • Like many other aristocrats, Coulomb was ejected from the government when the French Revolution began. 
  • He withdrew from the Corps du Genie in 1791 and settled on his farm in Blois, where he was extensively immersed in scientific study. 
  • During this period, he studied pivot friction, fluid viscosity, and the energy of men as it was impacted by food and climate.
  • Coulomb’s second son was born on July 30, 1797, and he eventually got married in 1802 to Louise Francoise LeProust Desormeaux, the mother of his two boys. 
  • De Coulomb had suffered from persistent diseases since his service in the West Indies. 
  • In the summer of 1796, he became sick with a lingering fever and died in Paris on August 23, 1806.

INTERESTING FACTS

  • Coulomb graduated from the École royale du génie de Mézières in November 1761.
  • Over the following two decades, he worked in various sectors, including structural engineering, fortifications, soil mechanics, and many more.
  • Philosophy, linguistics, and literature were among the subjects he studied.
  • He was also well-educated in mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, and botany.
  • His initial appointment was to Brest, but in February 1764, he was transferred to , in the West Indies, to oversee the construction of the new Fort Bourbon. This endeavor kept him busy until June 1772.
  • He immediately began authoring essential works on applied mechanics, and his first paper was presented to the Académie des Sciences in Paris in 1773.
  • Coulomb was dispatched to Rochefort in 1779 to work with the Marquis de Montalembert on constructing a fort constructed entirely of wood near Ile d’Aix.
  • Coulomb continued his studies in mechanics while in , mainly using the shipyards as a laboratory for his experiments.
  • He found the exact link between the magnetic poles after discovering an inverse relationship between the force of electric charges and the square of their distance. Coulomb’s law was later given to these interactions.
  • He was stationed in Paris in 1781. When the Revolution broke out in 1789, he left his position as intendant des eaux et fontaines and withdrew to a little farm he held in Blois.
  • In 1802, he was appointed as the inspector of public education after becoming one of the founding members of the French National Institute.
  • Coulomb is remembered as a geotechnical engineering pioneer for contributing to retaining wall design. His name is one of the 72 inscriptions on the Eiffel Tower.
  • His health was already deteriorating; he died four years later in Paris.

Charles-Augustin de Coulomb Worksheets

This fantastic bundle includes everything you need to know about Charles-Augustin de Coulomb across 27 in-depth pages. These ready-to-use worksheets are perfect for teaching kids about Charles-Augustin de Coulomb, a highly regarded French physicist. He developed Coulomb’s law and proposed ground-breaking theories on the force between electrical charges, magnetic attraction, and repulsion.

Complete List of Included Worksheets

Below is a list of all the worksheets included in this document.

  1. Charles-Augustin de Coulomb Facts
  2. Def-Write Them!
  3. All About Coulomb
  4. Truths and Lies
  5. A Scientific Past
  6. The Grand Prix Entries
  7. Scientist Profile 
  8. A Wise Man Says…
  9. The Torsion Balance
  10. Coulomb’s Law
  11. Calculation of Force and Charges

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was Charles-Augustin de Coulomb?

Charles-Augustin de Coulomb (1736-1806) was a French physicist and engineer known for his significant contributions to the fields of electricity and magnetism. He formulated Coulomb’s law, which describes the electrostatic interaction between electric charges.

What is Coulomb’s law?

Coulomb’s law states that the force between two charged objects is directly proportional to the product of their charges and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. It can be expressed mathematically as F = k * (q1 * q2) / r^2, where F is the force, q1 and q2 are the charges, r is the distance between them, and k is the electrostatic constant.

What were Coulomb’s major contributions to physics?

Coulomb made several significant contributions to physics. His most notable achievement was formulating Coulomb’s law, which quantitatively described the force between electric charges. He also conducted precise experiments to determine the relationship between electrical force, charge, and distance. Coulomb’s work laid the foundation for the development of the theory of electromagnetism.

Did Coulomb make any other notable discoveries?

In addition to Coulomb’s law, he also conducted extensive research on friction, magnetism, and torsion balances. He investigated the laws of friction and proposed Coulomb’s frictional law, which states that the force of friction between two surfaces is proportional to the normal force and the coefficient of friction. Coulomb’s torsion balance was a crucial tool for measuring electrical forces accurately.

How did Coulomb’s work impact the field of physics?

Coulomb’s contributions had a profound impact on the development of physics. His laws provided a mathematical framework to understand and calculate the forces between electric charges accurately. His research on friction and magnetism furthered our understanding of these phenomena. Coulomb’s work laid the groundwork for subsequent advances in electromagnetism and influenced the work of notable physicists such as Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell. Today, his laws and concepts remain fundamental principles in the study of electricity and magnetism.

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