Georg Ohm - The Discovery of Ohm's Law

The Discovery of Ohm's Law

Ohm's 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 Ohm's and the approaches of Joseph Fourier and Claude-Louis Navier.

A detailed study of the conceptual framework used by Ohm in producing Ohm's 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.