Everything about Georg Ohm totally explained
Georg Simon Ohm was a German physicist.
As a high school teacher, Ohm started his research with the recently invented
electrochemical cell, invented by Italian Count
Alessandro Volta. Using equipment of his own creation, Ohm determined that there's a direct proportionality between the potential difference (
voltage) applied across a conductor and the resultant
electric current which flows through it -- which we now know as
Ohm's law.
Using the results of his experiments, Ohm was able to define the fundamental relationship among
voltage,
current, and
resistance, which represents the true beginning of
electrical circuit analysis.
Biography
Early years
Georg Simon Ohm was born at
Erlangen,
Kingdom of Bavaria, to Johann Wolfgang Ohm, a locksmith and Maria Elizabeth Beck, the daughter of a tailor in Erlangen. Although his parents hadn't been formally educated, Ohm's father was a respected man who had educated himself to a high level and was able to give his sons an excellent education through his own teachings. Some of Ohm's brothers and sisters died in their childhood and only three survived. The survivors, including Georg Simon, were his younger brother
Martin, who later became a well-known mathematician, and his sister Elizabeth Barbara. His mother died when he was ten.
From early childhood, Georg and Martin were taught by their
father who brought them to a high standard in
mathematics,
physics,
chemistry and
philosophy. Georg Simon attended Erlangen Gymnasium from age eleven to fifteen where he received little in the area of scientific training, which sharply contrasted with the inspired instruction that both Georg and Martin received from their father. This characteristic made the Ohms bear a resemblance to the
Bernoulli family, as noted by
Karl Christian von Langsdorf, a professor at the
University of Erlangen.
Life in university
In 1805, at age 15, Ohm entered the
University of Erlangen. Rather than concentrate on his studies he spent much time dancing, ice skating and playing billiards. Ohm's father, angry that his son was wasting the educational opportunity, sent Ohm to Switzerland where, in September 1806, he took up a post as a mathematics teacher in a school in Gottstadt bei Nydau.
Karl Christian von Langsdorf left the University of Erlangen in early
1809 to take up a post in the
University of Heidelberg and Ohm would have liked to have gone with him to
Heidelberg to restart his mathematical studies. Langsdorf, however, advised Ohm to continue with his studies of mathematics on his own, advising Ohm to read the works of
Euler,
Laplace and
Lacroix. Rather reluctantly Ohm took his advice but he left his teaching post in Gottstadt bei Nydau in March 1809 to become a private tutor in
Neuchâtel. For two years he carried out his duties as a tutor while he followed Langsdorf's advice and continued his private study of mathematics. Then in April 1811 he returned to the University of Erlangen.
Teaching career
His studies had stood him in good position for his receiving a
doctorate from Erlangen on
October 25,
1811 and immediately joined the staff as a mathematics lecturer. After three semesters Ohm gave up his university post because of unpromising prospects while he couldn't make both ends meet with the lecturing post. The Bavarian government offered him a post as a teacher of mathematics and physics at a poor quality school in
Bamberg and he took up the post there in January 1813. Feeling unhappy with his job, Georg devoted to writing an elementary book on
Geometry as a way to prove his true ability. The school was then closed down in February 1816. The Bavarian government sent him to an overcrowded school in Bamberg to help out with the mathematics teaching.
After that, he sent the manuscript to
King Wilhelm III of Prussia upon its completion. The King was satisfied with Georg's work and he offered Ohm a position at a
Jesuit Gymnasium of
Cologne on
September 11 1817. Thanks to the school's reputation for science education, Ohm found himself required to teach physics as well as mathematics. Luckily, the physics lab was well-equipped, so Ohm devoted himself to experimenting on physics. Being the son of a locksmith, Georg had some practical experience with mechanical equipment.
He came to the polytechnic school of
Nuremberg in 1833, and in 1852 became professor of experimental physics in the university of
Munich, where he later died.
The discovery of Ohm's law
Ohm's law appeared in the famous book
Die galvanische Kette, mathematisch bearbeitet (The Galvanic Circuit Investigated Mathematically) (1827) in which he gave his complete theory of electricity. The book begins with the mathematical background necessary for an understanding of the rest of the work. While his work greatly influenced the theory and applications of current electricity, it was coldly received at that time. It is interesting that Ohm presents his theory as one of contiguous action, a theory which opposed the concept of action at a distance. Ohm believed that the communication of electricity occurred between "contiguous particles" which is the term Ohm himself uses. The paper is concerned with this idea, and in particular with illustrating the differences in scientific approach between Ohm and that of
Fourier and
Navier. A detailed study of the conceptual
framework used by Ohm in formulating Ohm's law is given in .
Study and publications
His writings were numerous. The most important was his pamphlet published in
Berlin in 1827, with the title
Die galvanische Kette mathematisch bearbeitet. This work, the germ of which had appeared during the two preceding years in the journals of Schweigger and Poggendorff, has exerted an important influence on the development of the theory and applications of
electric current. Ohm's name has been incorporated in the terminology of
electrical science in
Ohm's Law (which he first published in
Die galvanische Kette...), the
proportionality of current and
voltage in a
resistor, and adopted as the
SI unit of
resistance, the
ohm (symbol Ω).
Although Ohm's work strongly influenced theory, at first it was received with little enthusiasm. However, his work was eventually recognized by the
Royal Society with its award of the
Copley Medal in 1841 . He became a foreign member of the Royal Society in 1842, and in 1845 he became a full member of the
Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities.
Works
- Grundlinien zu einer zweckmäßigen Behandlung der Geometrie als höheren Bildungsmittels an vorbereitenden Lehranstalten / entworfen (Guidelines for an appropriate treatment of geometry in higher education at preparatory institutes / notes) » Erlangen : Palm und Enke, 1817. - XXXII, 224 S., II Faltbl. : graph. Darst. (PDF, 11.2 MB)
- Die galvanische Kette : mathematisch bearbeitet (The Galvanic Circuit Investigated Mathematically) » Berlin : Riemann, 1827. - 245 S. : graph. Darst. (PDF, 4.7 MB)
- Elemente der analytischen Geometrie im Raume am schiefwinkligen Coordinatensysteme (Elements of analytic geometry concerning the skew coordinate system) » Nürnberg : Schrag, 1849. - XII, 590 S. - (Ohm, Georg S.: Beiträge zur Molecular-Physik ; 1) (PDF, 81 MB)
- Grundzüge der Physik als Compendium zu seinen Vorlesungen (Fundamentals of physics: Compendium of lectures) » Nürnberg : Schrag, 1854. - X, 563 S. : Ill., graph. Darst. Erschienen: Abth. 1 (1853) - 2 (1854) (PDF, 38 MB)
- Bibliography and PDF files of all articles and books by Georg Simon Ohm
Further Information
Get more info on 'Georg Ohm'.
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