Remembering the unit men - Ohm

The first in a series of brief looks at those who made discoveries and have their names as units of measurement.

Georg Simon Ohm was a remarkable individual born in 1789 and began school at the age of 11, gained his Ph. D with the career aim of becoming a professor.

Ohm was extremely interested in electricity and the then recently discovered phenomenon of electromagnetism.

That led him to begin experimenting, taking measurements and established a mathematical relationship - the very basis of what we know as Ohm's Law.

Initially he suffered from those sceptical of his work but it did result in the post of professor of physics in Nuremburg and later at the Berlin university.

Some 37 years after his death, he gained the ultimate recognition when in Britain first, and then at the First International Electrical Congress in Paris 1881 the unit of resistance was named the Ohm.

Jim Linton VK3PC

WIA