Volts, watts, amps, Ohm – without them, there would be no electricity. Or would there? What connects these scientists in any case is the fact that Measuring units that use electricity to do with, bear their name.
Georg Simon Ohm grew up in Erlangen as the son of a master locksmith who also studied higher mathematics. Eager to learn, he quickly completed high school and began 16-year-old with a degree in mathematics, physics and philosophy at the Friedrich-Alexander University in Erlangen-Nuremberg. However, financial difficulties forced him to abandon his studies after one year. An alternative was a job as mathematics teacher at a private school in Switzerland.
At the age of 22, he returned to his hometown, where he received his PhD with a Work on light and colors He then worked as a private lecturer in mathematics, then became a teacher at the Altes Gymnasium (now Kaiser Heinrich Gymnasium) and the Realschule (Clavius-Gymnasium) in Bamberg. From 1817 onwards, he taught physics and mathematics at the Jesuit Gymnasium in Cologne. Rather under-challenged in his teaching and pedagogical activities, he therefore also devoted himself to Construction of physical apparatus for teaching and research.
In 1825 he began with the Investigations into electric currentAfter a year, he developed the law: current = voltage = resistance (J = U = R), which brought order to a bewildering array of electrical phenomena. This physical unit for electrical resistance, based on this law, was internationally designated "ohm" in 1881.
It should be noted that electrification in Germany only began in 1880. The first electric street lamps were put into operation in Berlin in 1882. Private households did not begin using electricity on a large scale until the 1920s.
Hoping for a university career, he moved to Berlin in 1826, where he supported himself as a teacher at a military school. It was there that he wrote his major work, "The Galvanic Chain." Although few colleagues recognized the work at the time, it was reprinted seven times by 1989.
In 1833 he was appointed professor of mathematics and physics at the Royal Polytechnic School in Nuremberg, from which the present Ohm Technical School From 1839 he was Rector this school.
The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Natural Science awarded him the Copley Medal. His discoveries were thus internationally recognized. In Nuremberg, he developed a law on the creation of pure and compound tones – the Ohm's law of acoustics (1842)
His plan to derive a theory of molecular physics from the shape and size of molecules never progressed beyond a large mathematical introductory volume (1849).
In 1849, he received an appointment from the University of Munich as an (associate) professor and curator of the state collection of mathematics and physics. From 1852, he held a full professorship in experimental physics there. The King of Bavaria honored him with two further high honors.
Traces of Georg Simon Ohm in Erlangen:
- In Erlangen, the Ohmplatz with its fountain and the Ohm-Gymnasium bear his name
- The Ohm Association, founded in 1980, maintains Ohm's memory by supporting research, exhibitions and publishing Ohm's estate, which his descendants donated to the city archives in 1989 at the association's suggestion.