ELECTRONICS & POWER JUNE 1986 487 A history of Ohm's Law Early studies of electrical resistance are little known amongst today’s engineers and technicians. Some of these first attempts are described here, from early studies using static discharges to work by Ohm in ‘The period from 1800 to 1831 is particul: arly important in the history of electrical engineering. Prior to 1800, electrical facience was restricted to what A.M. ‘Ampere was later to call electrostatics, but in thet year an Malian, Alessandro Volta, made known his invention of the primary battery or, as it then became known, Volta’s pile. For the first time ‘workers had available to them a means of producing a continuous electric current, and the method of production was so simple that it soon became widespread throughout the laboratories of Europe. This continuous electric current quickly became a tool enabling new discover to be made, the most important im mediate outcome being the new science of electrochemistry. Apart from electrochemistry, it was not until 1820 that news came ofthe first of the fundamental ecientifie discoveries upon, which electrical engineering is founded, and that was the discovery of electromagnetism by Hans Christian Oersted at Copenhagen University. Before 1820, electricity and magnetism were generally viewed as similar but quite separate phenomena, but Oersted discovered that magnetism was essen- tially a byproduct of the movement of electricity. Whenever electricity flowed, magnetic effects would be found. Oersted's discovery was quickly follow- ed by others: Biot and Savart’s Law (1820), Ampére's laws of electrodynam- {cs (1820-27), Ohm's Law (1826-27), and the laws of induction (Faraday, 1831) arid self-induction (Henry, 1832). Of these and other discoveries of the same period, Obm's Law stands out for two reasons: lire, as the one most widely known today even to schoolchildren, and secondly, as one which was recelv lke: 1986 1826-1827 by Tony Atherton Georg Simon Ohm468 ed with very little enthusiasm by the discoverer’s contemporaries. From Paris, Ampére fulfilled a growi 3 need by clarifying the essential differences betwoen two types of electrical phenom ‘ena (electrostatics and electrodynamics) and by providing the first clear desini tions of what were meant by the terms electric current and electric vol.age (ension). Yet the concept of an elec trical resistance relating the two was one for which few felt any necessity. It was Into this void that Ohm hopefully an nounced his law, yet received little ac clamation. Indeed his theory was even attacked by G. Pohl, a respected Ger: man physicist, as a ‘web of naked fan cies’ that had ‘no support even in the ‘most superficial observation of facts’! And yet the concept of electrical res- Istance affecting the flow of current had not been completely missed by others. In the previous century, H. Cavendish, 1. Priestley and J. Leslie had each demonstrated a clear understanding of it, as did H. Davy in 1821 and A.C. Bec: querel in 1825. Work performed before Ohm Cavendish, Priestley and Leslie all performed their work before Volta an- nounced the invention of the primary battery. The currents with which they worked were of short duration, simply being the oscillatory discharges from statically charged banks of Leyden jar capacitors, devices then used for storing electrical charge. Not that they realised that the discharges were oscillatory That impression seems to have arisen ‘early in the 19th century and was finally verified by Lord Kelvin (William Thom- on) in 1853, To obtain accurate infor- ‘mation about the flow of a current through a resistor, without prior Inowledge, without what we know as an ammeter and using only the cecillating discharge of a capacitor, is no mean feat. That those three men succeeded to varying degrees speaks highly of their skill and ingenuity. The study of electrical conduction may be said to have begun in 1729 when Stephen Gray (1666-1736) in England discovered that some materials could conduct an electric charge whereas others could not. This work was extend ed by J.T. Desaguliers (1683-1744), @ Frenchman living in England. It was he who Introduced new terminology to replace the ‘electrics’ and ‘non-electrics’ of the earlier age. An ‘electric’ was a substance such as amber (Greek name electron, hence electric) which could be given an electric charge by friction; @ ‘non-electric’ was one that could not. Desaguliers used the new discovery of electrical conduction to change these names to our familiar terms insulator (from the Latin word for island) and con- ductor. Back in France, Charles du Fay (1688-1739) repeated ' Gray's experi ments in 1733 and further studied Otto yon Guericke’s nearly 10-year-old discovery of electrical repulsion, which was paired with the ancient knowledge ELECTRONICS & POWER JUNE 1986 of electrical attraction. Du Fay was led to the conclusion that there are two kinds of electricity: vitreous and resinous. Ben: jamin Franklin (1706-1790), the great American scientist and statesman, later renamed them positive and negative. In 1753 it had been shown by G.B. Beccaria of Turin that, ifa discharge was made to pass along a path which includ ed a tube filled with water, the shock received by the observer was more pow- erful if the cross-section of the tube was increased. Possibly this is the first (obli. que) reference to the dependence of resistance on the cross-sectional area of the conductor, Later, Cavendish extend fed this work considerably and brought ‘Sir John Leslie forward the concept, though not the name, of resistivity. Henry Cavendish (1731-1810) was a remarkable man who made many impor- tant discoveries in the field of electrical science; most of these, however, played no part in the advancement of that science as he published litle of his work, most of st only coming to light through the efforts of another, greater, physicist, James Clerk Maxwell who published book about Cavendish’s researches in 1879, a lifetime after Cavendish’s death, In 1775 Cavendish reported to the Royal Society of London on a comp- ariton between the resistances of pleces of iron and quantities of rain water, distilled water and salt water: ‘electricity ‘meets with no more resistance in passing through a piece of iron wire 400 000 000 inches long than through a column of water of the same diameter only one inch long’. Cavendish was operating some 45 years before the invention of the galvanometer and $0, like Beccaria and others, he judged the current from his static discharges by passing them through his own body and judging the shock he received. Maxwell, who was impressed by the accuracy of the results, ‘gave the following fascinating account of Cavendish’s experimental technique: "Every comparison of two resistances was made by Cavendish by connecting one ‘end of each resistance-tube with the ex: ternal coating of a set of equally charged Leyden jars and touching the jars in suc- cession with a piece of motal held in one hand, while with a piece of metal in the other hand he touched alternatively the tends ofthe two resistances. He thus com- pared the sensation of the shock felt When the one or the other resistance in addition to the resistance of his body was placed in the path of the discharge. His Fosults therefore are derived from the comparison of the sensations produced by an enormous number of shocks pass- ed through his own body.” Joseph Priestley (1733-1804), a British chemist, one of the discoverers of oxy- ‘gen and author of a book on the history of electricity (1775), also performed 'ex- periments on the conducting power of various substances’ and showed that oil and asbestos are insulators. Like Caven- dish he subjected himself to electric shocks in order to measure the discharge but he also used another rather more reliable technique: measuring the length of the maximum air gap across which he could just get a spark to jump when different resistors were in circuit, The larger the air gap, the better the conducter, John Leslie: While these two English: men had performed very useful work, a Scot, Sir John Leslie (1766-1832), went considerably further than either of them and all but stated Ohm's Law in a paper written in 179] but not published until 1824, two years before Ohm's earliest correct statement of his law. Leslie's paper has been compared with Ohm's work, with the conclusion that: "Both Ohm's and Leslie's statements can be represented by an equation of the form 1=V/R.‘ though it should be emphasis- fed that Leslie did net, in fact, give this equation, Leslie objected, apparently on gener: ‘al philosophical grounds, to the abit rary classification of materials as either conductors or non-conductors, and set himself the task of determining the parameters which control the velocity of transmission of electricity. He succeed- ed both in producing a theoretical treat: ment and in obtaining experimental verification. Ohm's later work, however, was far more rigorous and there is no doubt thet the law is correctly named after Ohm, not Leslio Leslie's theoretical treatment wes bas- ed on an analogy drawn between the conduction of heat and the conduction of electricity, and on the assumption that there is an electrical law analogous to Isaac Newton's law of cooling (which states that a body loses heat in propor- tion to the temperature difference bet ween it and its surroundings). Ohm's treatment was based on the same analogy between heat and electricity but employed Fourier's mathematical analysis of heat flow (Théorie analytique de la chaleur, 1822) as the analytical tool. Leslie's problem was complicated by the fact that by working before the in- vention of the primary battery he could not employ a conslant voltage source, his source being a statically chargedbody whose exponential leakage during discharge gave him his current. One statement by Leslie: 'I have sup: posed that the rate of communication of ‘electricity is proportional to the intens! ty’ may be taken as a partial and ten tative statement of Ohm's Law, predat- ing Ohm, if we allow that by ‘intensity’ he understood this to be the difference in Intensity between the charged body and the body to which the discharge was tak: ‘ng place. His paper leaves little room to doubt that he did understand this. But Lealie did even more than this. Again by analogy with heat conduction, he argued that the current is inversely proportional to the length of the conduc- tor, directly proportional to the cross: sectional area, and proportional to the conductivity. Also, that a series com bination of resistances of different con: duetivities or cross-sectional areas can be replaced by an equivalent uniform resistor. All that remained was to verify some of his claims by a fascinating ex- periment: comparing the time taken to discharge a Leyden jar capacitor via a slip of carbon-coated paper with the time required when the paper's length was halved, when its width was halved, and when coated with extra charcoal dust to change its resistivity! In his own words: “These deductions are confirmed by ex periment, as far as the nature of the sub- Ject will admit. Thus, if slip of paper, sufficient to discharge a Leyden phial in about a quarter of an hour, be rubbed slightly with charcoal dust, it will per: form the effect in ten seconds. If now reduced to one-half its broadth, i will require about double the time; and, if ‘again shortened to one-half its length, the time will be nearly the same as at first, If the charcoal dust be gradually sirewed thicker, the discharge will become more and more rapid, till the in- terval can no longer be distinguished.’ Soon after Leslie completed his work, the science of electricity was completely changed by the announcement of the in- vention of Volta’s pile, or primery bat- tery. The announcement was made in 1800 in a letter to the Royal Society of London. Almost overnight the easy availability of a continuous electric cur- ront relegated to a back seat the study of the science that Ampére later termed electrostatics. The first discovery made with the new source of electricity was the dissociation of water into hydrogen and oxygen by a feeble electric current (W. Nicholson and A. Carlisle, London, 1800). This, together with attempts to ex. plain the action of the battery, quickly established electrochemistry as the new field of interest If Leslie's work had been published in 1791, when it was written, it might have ‘made an impact on the march of science. By the time it was published in 1824, electrochemistry was well established and the new sciences of electromagnet ism and electrodynamics were the focal ‘points of interest. Leslie's work failed to ‘make any real impact on the growth of ELECTRONICS & POWER JUNE 1986 knowledge of electricity. Perhaps the best that Leslie could have hoped for ‘would have been, at some later date, 10 make a weak claim for priority over ‘Ohm, but even that is optimistic in view of the thoroughness of Ohm's work, and there seoms no evidence that Leslie ever ‘entertained such hopes. Humphry Davy: The dissociation of ‘water by an electric current was used in 1821 by Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829) {as an ‘ammoter’ when he made his own Investigations into electrical conductivi ty, now using ‘galvanic’ electricity (a continuous current) rather than a static ‘André Marie Ampare discharge. With his work, the basic knowledge already gained for electro- statics, though not widely known, was ‘extended to the continuous current case with some additional information about the effects of temperature. Davy's well: known work soon formed the basis of most workers’ understanding of elec: trical conductivity, particularly in England. His method was simple and elegant, The wire under test was placed in parallel with a conducting path of water 0 that the current flow was through two parallel resistors, one fixed (the water) and one variable (the wire). The length of the wire, and hence its resistance, was reduced until the dissociation of water Just stopped,? i.e. until a fixed, though unknown, limiting value was reached. In this way Davy demonstrated that the resistance of a wire of any one metal is directly proportional to its length, in- directly proportional to its cross- sectional area, independent of the shape cf the cross-section, increases directly vwith temperature, and is different for dif- ferent metals. He was algo able to show that the current through a circuit is the ‘same in all parts of the circuit even when different parts of the circuit are made of different materials André Marie Ampere: One year earlier, the elusive link between the sciences of electricity and magnetism had finally been discovered by Hans Christian Oersted (1771-1851) at Copen- agen University when he found the ‘magnetic field associated with a direct electric current. Oersted's. discovery 469 was the second major event which led in- fo an age of electrical engineering, ‘Volta’s battery being the first. It caused a frenzy of excitement inthe scientific cen- tres of Europe where it gave rise to two new electrical disciplines: electromag- netism and electrodynamics. In Paris, ‘André Marie Ampére (1775-1836) imme- diately set to work and over the next few years carefully laid the foundations of electrodynamics. With the advent of Volta’s battery, the natural question arose as to whether voltaic electricity was a new phenom- enon or merely the old electricity seen in ‘a new way. The concepts of static dis- charges, electrical shocks and electro- static potential (a term introduced by the English mathematician George Green in. 1828) were familiar; the tension and cur- rent from a battery were new, and there was considerable confusion over the relationships between the new Phenomena, and between them and the ‘ald. (Electrostatic potential had been studied proviouly by S.D, Poisson In france.) ‘Ampére clarified some of that confu- sion in 1820 by giving clear definitions ‘of what he meant by electric tension and electric current, terms which, though in ‘common use, were ill-defined, Ampére's prime mover was what he termed the “electromotive action’ which tock place inside the battery cells. This produced an ‘electromotive force’, and it was this force which caused the Current to flow if the circuit was closed, or produced the tension between the terminals if the cir- cuit was open, Tn writing about his current, Ampére made his closest approach to Ohm's Law: ‘The currents of which I am speak. Ing are accelerated until the inertia of the electric fluids and the resistance which they encounter because of the im- perfection of even the best conductors make equilibrium with the electromotive force, alter which they continue in- definitely with constant velocity s0 long fs this force has the same intensity.’® Ohm's work In May 1827, Georg Simon Ohm (1789-1854), then a little-known school teacher, published a book in which he gave a mathematical derivation of his law. derived by analogy with J.BJ. Fourier's earlier (1822) analysis of the flow of heat along a wire. Previously, ‘Ohm had published two experimental papers and four notes on the subject, but his book made no reference to his ex: ‘periments. The first paper (1825) gave a law relating the ‘ractional loss of force’, v, along a test wire of length x w where m and o are constants, The s6- ccond (1826) corrected the first and gave ‘Ohm's law in a form easily recognisable tous: log + x/) ob +x) @ where X is the strenath of the magnetic ‘action when the conductor is used whose470 length is x, and a and b are constants which represent magnitudes depending con the exciting force and the resistance (of the rest of the circuit. In modern ter- minology the ‘strength of the magnetic ‘ction’ becomes the magnitude of the ‘current, and the ‘exciting force’ is the epplied voltage; and we have Ohm's Law. ‘While eqn. was, for a long time, generally treated as Incorrect, Ohm rust be credited with, at the time, hav. {ng just reason for using it ¢s a summary of his experimental results which, though made under difficult conditions, may be taken as approximately correct. Indeed Schagrin” has shown that eqn.1 {s approximately correct for a circuit ‘with @ voltage source of comparatively large internal resistance. First experiment: By 1825 it was well ‘known that ifa conductor ina circuit was replaced by one that was a poorer con- ductor, then the magnetic effect of the current was reduced. Ohm therefore ‘chose to measure the difference between the force of the magnetic action when ‘using a given test sample (test resistor), cof which he hed several, and that when using a single, standard, resistor whose resistance was much less than any of the test resistors. In other words, for each test resistor he measured the ‘loss of force’, or the reduction of the current (current difference) from a ‘standard’ value. He was not measuring the actual magnitude of the current in defined units. His measuring instrument was @ ‘Coulomb-type torsion meter, an instru- ‘ment well known at that time for its sen- tivity. In the experiment the resistance was variable and the voltage was fixed, or as fixed as it could be when using the im- perfect chemical batteries then avail- able. Several test resistors were used, ‘measurements being taken with the stan- dard both before and after each test resistor 90 as to obtain an average or ‘normal force’ for comparison with the result from thet test resistor. The current through the test resistor was then ex- ‘pressod as a fraction of the average cur- rent through the standard. Each test resistor could be measured soveral times, the results being interpolated to some ‘standard’ normal force. ‘Ohm faced two main experimental dif- ficulties: firs, his battery, as was com- mon in those days, gave’a continually decreasing output voltage (perhaps caused by polarisation); and secondly, teach time the circuit was opened or clos ed a current surge occurred which pre- sented difficulties in reading the torsion meter. The first problem he minimised by taking the average value for the stan- dard, \.e. the average of the two values obtained for the standard resistor, one taken just before and one just after ‘measuring the value for the test resistor. The second he overcame by allowing these surges to pess and taking the reading when the value was only chang- ELECTRONICS & POWER JUNE 1986 ing slowly. By these techniques Ohm ob- tained the results which he described by ‘eqn.1. Later he eliminated the surge problem by always inserting the next resistor before removing the previous ‘one, the two temporarily being in parallel and the circuit always remain- Ing closed. ‘Second experiment: In 1822 Thomas Seebeck (1780-1831) of Berlin discover- ‘ed what we now call the Seebeck effect (the production of an electromotive force caused by a temperature difference bet- woon the ends of*two wires of different metals joined together at both ends). At Poggendor!’s suggestion, Ohm now used. this, in the form of a copper-bismuth thermocouple, as a ‘thermoelectric bat- tery’. It was from the results of this ex- periment that the present Ohm's Law ‘was derived and published in 1826. ‘The experiment was elegant in its simplicity and the care with which it was performed. Boiling water and melting ce were employed to set up a constant temperature differential across the thermocouple and so produce a constant voltage (of the order of a millivolt). Fight strips of copper wire, of different lengths, were used as the test resistors. Gone were the current surges and the fading supply voltage from his earlier ‘hydroelectric’ (J.e. chemical) primary battery, and gone too was the standard resistor and its associated measurement of the ‘loss of magnetic action’ (current difference). Instead there was a supply with a very constant voltage, and straightforward measurements of the length of the resistor and the force ex- ferted on the torsion balance by the magnetic field of the current, The ex- perimental reaulte ware deecribed by the simple equation given here as eqn.2, and Ohm's Law was born. In the same paper he compared the conductivities of different metals and also confirmed Davy’s observation of the change of con- ductivity with temperature, and referred to the possibility of this causing ‘anomalous results, ‘Mathematical derivation: In his ‘mathematical derivation published the following year, Ohm gave the law: SayE @ whore Sis the current, y the conductivity and E the ‘difference of the electroscopic forces at the terminals’.? The term ‘elec troscopic force’ arose from electroscope measurements of the potential as it was dropped through the circuit, with some ‘of the old confusion between the con- cepts of electrostatics and electrodyn- ics still present. Ohm also gave the pment: ‘The magnitude of the current In a galvanic circuit is directly propor- tional to the sum of all tensions and in- the total reduced length of the Regrettably, however, he did not give any account of his experimental work, which could so easily have been offered as verification of his law and ‘would have prevented the growth of the ‘once popular notion that he obtained his law only by mathematical means. The mathematical approach, as already stated, followed that laid down by J.B. Fourier in his analysis of the flow of heat along a wite. Ohm assumed that ‘the communication of the electricity from one particle takes place directly only to the one next to it, and that the magnitude of this flow was ‘proportional to the difference of the electric forces ex- {sting in the two particles; just as, in the theory of heat, the flow of caloric bet- ween two particles is regarded as pro- portional to the difference of their temp: eratures’. This reference to caloric, the ‘once supposed fluid of heat, helps us to place Ohm's work in its historical per~ spective. By this approach he was able to show that the current flowing in a con- ductor is dependent only on the conduc- tivity of the conductor, and on a second variable which he described as having a relationship to electricity which is the ‘same as that of temperature to heat. The previously puzzling question of what ‘happened to the tension of a battery ‘when the circuit was closed turned out to have a simple answer: it was distributed around the circuit ina manner determin- ‘ed by the resistance of the parts of the circult. This he verified by electroscope measurements. Acceptance With the knowledge gained by Ampére and Davy (Davy's confirmed by ‘A.C. Becquerel in 1825) it is tempting to assume that the statement we know as Ohm's Law would, on publication, have met with rapid and universal accept ance. This was not the case. In fact the reception it received was largely unen- thuslastic or apathetic, and in at least cone case it was positively hostile. ‘The obvious question which arises is: why did many of Ohm's contemporaries find the law s0 difficult to accept? Several suggestions have been put for ‘ward including philosophic prejudice, difficult mathematics, ignorance of ‘Ohm's experimental ‘work, the dif- ficulties of experimental verification and the difficulty of accepting Ohm's ‘con- ceptual innovation’ ‘One argument has suggested that the German scholars were influenced by G.W.F. Hegel whose philosophy was to present a science of thought, purified of fil reference to experience and facts of nature. Hegel's philosophy was publish- ed between 1811 and 1816 and has been Gescribed as deeling ‘with reality, not solely with man's instruments for know- {ng oF discussing it’. Hegel's followers, therefore, itis said, were simply not in terested in new experiments. Such 0 view may have been true of some Ger man workers, but i is dificult to recon cile with the fact that the people we are ‘concerned with are those who had already accepted the results of other ex: periments in the same field, Oersted's ‘work, for example (1820). Further, it was in Germany that J.S.C. Schwelager in- vented the multiplier in 1820 (a forerun- ner of the ammeter), that Seebeck dis covered the effect named after him(1822) and one of the first successful electromagnetic telegraphs was built (LF.K. Gauss and W.E. Weber, 1833). This view also ignores the flow of infor. mation between countries. Ohm himself sent a copy of his book to the Paris Academy of Science where Dulong and ‘Ampre were expected to examine it. The accusation that Ohm's (and hence Fourier's) mathomatical treatment was too complicated to be understood by those of his contemporaries who were in- terested, or that mathematical deriva- tions were then unfashionable, is an in- triguing claim. Suffice it to say that this ignores the fact that an experimental derivation of the law was published. However, Ohm could have helped his ‘own cause enormously if he had repeated the publications of his ex- periments, or at least referred to them, in his own book. Other ideas have revolved around the genuine difficulties of obtaining a cons- tant EMF from the batteries of the tim this would have made verification by others extremely difficult. Yet Ohm found ways around such problems and published the details of his methods, and others did, in time, verify his work (e.g. the German physicist G.T. Fechner in 1631). Whatever relevance should be paid to these suggestions, and it is possible that ‘all made a contribution, it does seem very plausible that a major contributing factor to the lack of appreciation of ‘Ohm's Law lay simply in the fact that ‘most workers still did not appreciate the probability of a relationship between the tension of a battery and the current it produced in a clreutt. This was not ob: vious to people who were steeped in a history of static electricity, in intricate ‘arguments over whether electricity was made up of one or two ‘fluids’, in con: fiderations of currents in ‘conflict’ (Cersted’s attempt to explain the mag- netic effect of an electric current) and in controversies between different theories of the operation of the primary battery. ‘Another complication arose from the presence of the high internal resistance of the batteries then used; a relatively ‘small circuit resistance would not, it might seem, have the simple effects on the current that might be expected from Ohm's claims. Schagrin? has presented a carefully prepared claim that it was Ohm's ‘con- ‘ceptual innovation’ that was at the root of the reaction to Obm’s work. By this he refers to Ohm's claim that the tension of a battery directly influences the current: ‘Ohm appeared to be confounding the ‘well recognised distinction between ten: sion electricity and current electricity’. But recognition and appreciation did come, though slowly. First from C.H. laff, Professor of Mathematics at Erlangen, in a private letter dated 1827; followed by some support from J.8.C. ‘Schweiger (inventor of the forerunner cf the ammeter), again by private letter, dated 1830. Later, papers were publish: ‘ed giving experimental verification: by ELECTRONICS & POWER JUNE 1986 G.T. Fechner in 1831, by CSM. Pouillet in 1831 and 1837, and by ‘Charles Wheatstone in 1843. In 1833, six years after publication of the book, Ohm was appointed Professor of Physics at the Polytechnic in Nuremburg; he received ‘the Copley Medal from the Royal Society cof London in 1841, and finally in 1849 he was appointed to the chair of physics and mathematics at the University of Munich. Perhaps these somewhat tardy honours were adequate compensation for the poor initial reaction and the fact that his publications had led to his en- forced resignation from his original teaching post! In 1833 Ohm's Law was. virtually unknown in England. In France, Pouillet's confirmation of the law by ex- periment was performed in the belief that Ohm had only deduced it mathemat- ically, and in America, Joseph Henry hhad heard of the law though not in any way sufficient to tell him what it stated. In 1833 he inquired as to ‘where the theory of Ohm might be found’ but received no answer until his visit to Lon: don in 1837. Progress Despite the slow reception ofthis mest basic law, further progress was being ‘made in understanding the flow of elec: tric current. In 1833, S.H. Christie (1785-1865) ‘in England clarified the dependence of the conductance of a wire on its diameter and length, em- pphasising that It was proportional to d/) fad not, a8 some hed come to believe, NVI, Christo also derived the bridge pptinciple for comparing resistances (1833), @ technique which Wheatstone later developed into the circuit known as the Wheaisione bridge (1643), Five years later, in 1848, G. Kirchhoff (1824-1887) ‘extended the work, again Using the analogy with heat which had served Ohm and Leslie so well. Also it wes Kirchholf who identified Ohm's electroscopie force with the electrostatic potential previously studied by S.D. Poisson and G. Green. The other basic law concerning current flow was sup- plied by J.P. Joule (1818-1880) in 1841, when he found that the heat produced ppt unit of time is proportional to JR. 30 yoars after the first statement of Ohm's Law, any remaining controversy was quenched by a report from the Britsh Association for the Advancement of Science (1876). Following a sugges- tion by James Clerk Maxwell, extensive an. experiments were performed by G. Chrystal, «professor at Edinburgh University, who concluded that Ohm's Law ‘must now be allowed to rank with the law of gravitation and the elementary, laws of statical electricity as a law of nature in the strictest sense.” By tha ime, however, Ohm's Law was {n common use. One example from early electrical engineering ofthe use of both Ohm's and Joule’s laws is the invention of Edison's incandescent lamp. Edison knew enough about the laws of elects: city to Teale thet if the energy of the lamp was given by the expression then a given amount ol ight could be ob- tained in two ways: either by @ low: resistance filament @ high current, or by a high resistance filament and a Tow current. Edison reasoned that the Inttor was. preferable 9a. transmission loses and costs would be lees, end thar was born the high-resistance incandes, cent light bulb, successful despite the ‘widespread opinion held by others that the filaments resistance should be low. ‘With the advent of telegraphy, partic- larly with the high-capactance sub marine cables of the 1850s and later, new problems were forced:onto engin: eers. William Thomson (Lord Kelvin, 1624-1997) takes much of the credit for solving the mysteries of the olfects of Capacitance in a cable, yet another ad- ‘vance in elecrical theory made with the help of the analogy with Fourier's treat- ment of the diffusion of heat. His mathematical analysis was of Groat fertance in the access of the famous Atlantic telegraph cables of 1865 and 1866 which gave birth to successful com- mercial telography betwoen Britain and ‘America. Induclance "was given’ is rightful place in the early 1870s when Olver. Heaviside (1850-1925) showed that combinations of resistors, capacitors and inductors, carrying alternating cur rents, could be treated by the rules ap- plicable to direct currents, provided that the inductors and capacitors were treated as resistors of the form (aL) and (jw), respectively. With tha, the fun- damental importance of Ohm's Law beceme even more apparent. “Though Ohm's work was ai first alven 1a vory poor reception, he did eventlly receive the credit dye to him. Perhape thé biggest accolade of all came some 27 years aiter his death when the new writ Of electrical resistance was named alter him. In this way his name is honoured throughout the world. References LWINTER, HJ. Mag., 1944, 38. pp.371-387 ‘2 WHITTAKER, ‘LESLIE, 4 OLSON, Fi. 1969, 97. pp. 190-194 ‘The reception of Ohm's electrical researches by hie contemporarie', Phil. “A history of the theories of gether and electricity’ (Nelson, 1951) ‘Observations on electrical theres’, Edin. Pl. ‘Sir Iohn Leslie and the laws ol electrical condition in eclide’, Am. J. Phys. 1624, 1 pp.1-39 S MAGIE, W.F.: A source book in physics! (McGraw-Hill, 1935) 6 ‘The McGrew Hill Encyclopeedia of World Biography’, Vol.8 ‘7 SCHAGRIN, M.L. “Resistance to Ohm's Law’, Am. J. Phys., 1962, 81, pp.S36-547 ‘Tony Atherton is with the Independent Broadcasting Authority, Harman Engineering Training College, Fore Stroet, Seaton, Devon EX12 2NS, England, He is an IEE Member Above average 184 Average 185 Below average 186