 | Born in Bavaria, Georg Ohm is credited for the discovery of the proportional relationship between current and voltage, and thus gives his name to the unit of resistance: the ohm. Like his earlier counterpart Alessandro Volta, Ohm was a high school teacher, using the Voltaic Pile to develop his understanding of electricity. |
Ohm’s law forms a pillar of electrical circuit theory and it may well have been the first electrical formula you ever learned. Even with later developments in AC circuit theory, showing resistance as dependent on frequency, Ohm’s law still applies under the right conditions, and like the laws of Newton, has survived as a fundamental of modern physics and engineering.
Ohm did not come from the aristocratic background that is common to many of the early scientists and engineers, and was educated by his father, who inspired him to take an interest in mathematics and physics. By the age of 20 he was working as a private mathematics teacher, and less than two years later, having gained a doctorate at the University of Erlangen, became an academic. With a lack of funding that may be familiar to those who have worked in Universities, Ohm grew frustrated with university life and became a high school teacher. During his time as a physics and mathematics teacher Ohm devoted himself to writing a large body of work, beginning with a guide to the teaching of geometry at high school level.
In his thirties Ohm began to develop a great interest in the study of electricity, and by the age of 38 had produced the work that he is now most famous for: The Galvanic Circuit Investigated Mathematically. It was in this work that he laid out the foundations of what we now know as Ohm’s Law.
Outside of Bavaria, Ohm began to gain recognition and in 1842 became a member of the Royal Society. In 1852, two years before his death, he was made a professor at the University of Munich. Ohm left a legacy appropriate to a life spent teaching at high school level, with Ohm’s law being a staple of most modern day science curriculums.
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