Georg Simon Ohm was a German physicist who first described the fundamental relationship between voltage, current, and electrical resistance in 1827. Ohm began studying at the University of Erlangen in 1805, but after only a year his father, not approving of his student life, sent him to school in Switzerland. There, Ohm took up teaching mathematics and indulged himself in the famous mathematical works of Euler, Lacroix, and Laplace, eventually becoming a professor of mathematics. After several years of teaching, he published his first paper in 1825 based on his experiments with electromagnetic forces. In 1827, he published Die galvanishce Kette, mathematisch bearbeitet (The Galvanic Circuit Investigated Mathematically), describing what is now known as Ohm’s Law. Ohm's Law states that the amount of steady current through a material is directly proportional to the voltage across the material divided by the electrical resistance of the material. Ohm's research significantly advanced electrical circuit analysis. The unit of electrical resistance, the ohm, is named for him.

Sources

• Cleveland, Cutler (Lead Author); Peter Saundry (Topic Editor). 2007. "Ohm, Georg Simon." In: Encyclopedia of Earth. Eds. Cutler J. Cleveland (Washington, D.C.: Environmental Information Coalition, National Council for Science and the Environment). [Published in the Encyclopedia of Earth March 19, 2007; Retrieved October 18, 2009].
• Wikipedia Contributors, Georg Ohm, Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia, Accessed 18 October 2009.