Biot was born in Paris in 1774, and died there in 1862. As a young man he attended the college of Louis-le-grand in Paris, and later the École Polytechnique. In the early 1800s, he studied the polarisation of light passing through chemical solutions, as well as the relationship between electrical current and magnetism. The Biot–Savart law, which describes the magnetic field generated by a steady current, is named after him and Félix Savart. The cgs unit of electric current, the Biot was also named after him. Biot was the first to confirm the reality of meteorites, hitherto regarded with scepticism by many astronomers, following his investigation of a substantial meteor storm over Normandy, at L'Aigle, in 1803.[1] He was also the first to discover the unique optical properties of mica, and