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Biography of Georg Simon Ohm Essay Georg Simon Ohm (16 March 1787 – 6 July 1854) was a Bavarian (German) physicist and mathematician. As a high school teacher, Ohm began his research with the new electrochemical cell, invented by Italian scientist Alessandro Volta. Using equipment of his own creation, Ohm found that there is a direct proportionality between the potential difference (voltage) applied across a conductor and the resultant electric current. This relationship is known as Ohms law. Ohm died in Munich in 1854, and is buried in the Alter Sà ¼dfriedhof. Early years Georg Simon Ohm was born into a Protestant family in Erlangen, Bavaria, (then a part of the Holy Roman Empire)son to Johann Wolfgang Ohm, a locksmith and Maria Elizabeth Beck, the daughter of a tailor in Erlangen. Although his parents had not been formally educated, Ohms 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. Of the seven children of the family only three survived to adulthood: Georg Simon, 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 Georg Ohms father, concerned that his son was wasting his educational opportunity, sent Ohm to Switzerland. There in September 1806 Ohm accepted a position 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 Neuchà ¢tel. For two years he carried out his duties as a tutor while he followed Langsdorfs advice and continued his private study of mathematics. Then in April 1811 he returned to the University of Erlangen. His private studies had stood him in good stead for he received a doctorate from Erlangen on 25 October 1811 and immediately joined the staff as a mathematics lecturer. After three semesters Ohm gave up his university post. He could not see how he could attain a better status at Erlangen as prospects there were poor while he essentially lived in poverty in 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. This was not the successful career envisaged by Ohm and he decided that he would have to show that he was worth much more than a teacher in a poor school. He worked on writing an elementary book on the teaching of geometry while remaining desperately unhappy in his job. After Ohm had endured the school for three years it was closed down in February 1816. The Bavarian government then sent him to an overcrowded school in Bamberg to help out with the mathematics teaching. On 11 September 1817 Ohm received an offer of the post of teacher of mathematics and physics at the Jesuit Gymnasium of Cologne. This was a better school than any that Ohm had taught in previously and it had a well equipped physics laboratory. As he had done for so much of his life, Ohm continued his private studies reading the texts of the leading French mathematicians Lagrange, Legendre, Laplace, Biot and Poisson. He moved on to reading the works of Fourier and Fresnel and he began his own experimental work in the school physics laboratory after he had learnt of Oersteds discovery of electromagnetism in 1820. At first his experiments were conducted for his own educational benefit as were the private studies he made of the works of the leading mathematicians. The Jesuit Gymnasium of Cologne failed to continue to keep up the high standards that it had when Ohm began to work there so, by 1825, he decided that he would try again to attain the job he really wanted, namely a post in a university. Realising that the way into such a post would have to be through research publications, he changed his attitude towards the experimental work he was undertaking and began to systematically work towards the publication of his results [1]:- Overburdened with students, finding little appreciation for his conscientious efforts, and realising that he would never marry, he turned to science both to prove himself to the world and to have something solid on which to base his petition for a position in a more stimulating environment. In fact he had already convinced himself of the truth of what we call today Ohms law namely the relationship that the current through most materials is directly proportional to the potential difference applied across the material. The result was not contained in Ohms firsts paper published in 1825, however, for this paper examines the decrease in the electromagnetic force produced by a wire as the length of the wire increased. The paper deduced mathematical relationships based purely on the experimental evidence that Ohm had tabulated. In two important papers in 1826, Ohm gave a mathematical description of conduction in circuits modelled on Fouriers study of heat conduction. These papers continue Ohms deduction of results from experimental evidence and, particularly in the second, he was able to propose laws which went a long way to explaining results of others working on galvanic electricity. The second paper certainly is the first step in a comprehensive theory which Ohm was able to give in his famous book published in the following year. Teaching career Ohms own studies prepared him for his doctorate which he received from the University of Erlangen on October 25, 1811. He immediately joined the faculty there as a lecturer in mathematics but left after three semesters because of unpromising prospects. He could not survive on his salary as a lecturer. The Bavarian government offered him a post as a teacher of mathematics and physics at a poor quality school in Bamberg which Ohm accepted in January 1813. Unhappy with his job, Georg began writing an elementary textbook on geometry as a way to prove his abilities. Ohms high school was closed down in February 1816. The Bavarian government then sent him to an overcrowded school in Bamberg to help out with the teaching of mathematics. Memorial for Ohm at the Technical University of Munich, Campus Theresienstrasse After his assignment in Bamberg, Ohm sent his completed manuscript to King Wilhelm III of Prussia. The King was satisfied with Ohms book, and offered Ohm a position at the Jesuit Gymnasium of Cologne on 11 September 1817. This school had a reputation for good science education and Ohm was required to teach physics in addition to mathematics. The physics laboratory was well-equipped, allowing Ohm to begin experiments in physics. As the son of a locksmith, Ohm had some practical experience with mechanical devices. Ohm published Die galvanishe Kette, mathematisch bearbeitet (The Galvanic Circuit Investigated Mathematically) in 1827. Ohms college did not appreciate his work and Ohm resigned from his position. He then made an application to, and was employed by, the Polytechnic School of Nuremberg. Ohm arrived at the Polytechnic School of Nuremberg in 1833, and in 1852 he became a professor of experimental phy sics at the University of Munich. The discovery of Ohms law Further information: Ohms Law Ohms law first appeared in the famous book Die galvanische Kette, mathematisch bearbeitet (tr., The Galvanic Circuit Investigated Mathematically) (1827) in which he gave his complete theory of electricity. In this work, he stated his law for electromotive force acting between the extremities of any part of a circuit is the product of the strength of the current, and the resistance of that part of the circuit. 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 used. The paper is concerned with this idea, and in particular with illustrating the differences in this scientific approach of Ohms and the approaches of Joseph Fourier and Claude-Louis Navier. A detailed study of the conceptual framework used by Ohm in producing Ohms law has been presented by Archibald. The work of Ohm marked the early beginning of the subject of circuit theory, although this did not become an important field until the end of the century. Ohms acoustic law Further information: Ohms acoustic law Ohms acoustic law, sometimes called the acoustic phase law or simply Ohms law, states that a musical sound is perceived by the ear as a set of a number of constituent pure harmonic tones. It is well known to be not quite true. WORKS * Guidelines for an appropriate treatment of geometry in higher education at preparatory institutes / notes * The Galvanic Circuit Investigated Mathematically * Elements of analytic geometry concerning the skew coordinate system * Fundamentals of physics: Compendium of lectures