Georg Ohm

Georg Simon Ohm, (March 16, 1787 - July 7, 1854), German physicist, was born in Erlangen and educated at the university there.

He became professor of mathematics in the Jesuits' college at Cologne in 1817 and in the polytechnic school of Nuremberg in 1833, and in 1852 became professor of experimental physics in the university of Munich, where he later died.

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 germs 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, the proportionality of current and voltage in a resistor, and adopted as the SI unit of resistance, the ohm (symbol Ω).

Original text from the 1911 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica