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Ohm's father was a self-taught man, and Ohm received an excellent education from him until age eleven, when he went to school. At school he failed to concentrate, and though he entered a university in 1805 his father forced him to drop out one year later because of Ohm's lack of drive. Ohm took a job as a math teacher at an elementary school, where he regained his drive to study. Ohm studied mathematics on his own, and returned to the university in 1811. He received his doctorate from the University of Erlangen in October of the same year. Ohm was then offered a post at a small, low quality school, which he was forced to accept. Here he wrote a book on elementary math, but was unable to do any research. Finally, in 1817, Ohm received a post at a high school, Cologne. This school was equipped for physics research, and it was here that he made his initial foray into electromagnetic research. Ohm was still unhappy, however, and wished to get a post at a university. Recognizing that he would only be accepted if he had made research publications, and so he began working feverishly to find and publish results. In 1827, while still teaching at the high school, Ohm made his most famous discovery: Ohm's law, which states that the current through a wire is equal to the voltage across the wire divided by the resistance of the wire. He published this in the book Die Galvanis Che Kette, Mathematis Che Bearbeitet. However, even this finding did not gain him a university offer. He finally resigned at the high school and took random teaching jobs in elementary schools. It was not until 1845, eighteen years after his book was published, that he finally became a member of a university, the Bavarian Academy. |