Makers of Electricity

by Brother Potamian; James J. Walsh

Ohm felt, in 1826, that he had succeeded in exhausting nearly all that he could learn for himself, and as he wished to have opportunities for further study, and especially for further reading, he asked for an academic furlough that would carry him over the next year. The work that he had already accomplished was beginning to be appreciated, and after discussion of the papers that he had published up to that time, the requested furlough was promptly granted; and in a letter in which the school authorities praised his school work as well as his original investigations, they allowed him to take the sabbatic year for the furtherance of science on one-half the usual salary, though with the condition also that more would be allowed to him in case this seemed necessary and the conditions justified it.

This furlough was perhaps the most important event in Ohm's life. He employed it in bringing to a focus the ideas with regard to electricity which had been gradually worked out in his mind during the past ten years. In May, 1827, within six months after the beginning of his exclusive devotion to the subject, Ohm's article on the mathematics of the galvanic current appeared. It proved a scientific achievement of the first rank, that was to be epoch-making in the domain of electricity. It settled the conditions under which electrical tension exists in various bodies, and made it clear that there is a fundamental law of electrical conduction which could be expressed by an easy, simple formula.

Ohm's preface to his little book, that was to work such a revolution in electricity and was to remain for all time one of the classics in this department of science, is typical of the man in many ways. Its modesty could not very well be exceeded. Its simplicity constitutes in itself an appeal to the reader's interest. I know nothing in the literature of the history of science quite like it in these regards, unless it be the preface of Auenbrugger's little book on percussion, in which he laid the foundation of modern clinical diagnosis.[25] The two men have many more qualities in common than the authorship of modest prefaces to their books. Both of them were geniuses whose names the aftertime will not willingly let die, and both of them accomplished their work apart from the stream of university life in their time, and met with a like fate in the neglect, for some time at least, by their distinguished colleagues of the important discoveries that they had made. Ohm's preface deserves to be quoted because of its classic quality:

"I herewith present to the public a theory of galvanic electricity as a special part of electrical science in general, and shall successively, as time, inclination and means permit, arrange more such portions together into a whole, if this first essay shall in some degree repay the sacrifice it has cost me. The circumstances in which I have hitherto been placed have not been suitable either to encourage me in the pursuit of novelties or to enable me to become acquainted with works relating to the same department of literature throughout its whole extent. I have, therefore, chosen for my first attempt a department of science in which I have the least to apprehend competition.

"May the well-disposed reader accept whatever I have accomplished with the same love for science as that with which it is sent forth!—The Author, Berlin, May 1st, 1827."

In his preface to the American edition of the "Galvanic Circuit Investigated Mathematically,"[26] Mr. Thomas D. Lockwood, vice-president of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, said of this masterpiece of Ohm's: "A sufficient reason for republishing an English translation of the wonderful book of Professor G. S. Ohm is the difficulty with which the only previous translation (that of Taylor's Scientific Memoirs) is procurable.

"Besides this, however, the intrinsic value of the book is so great that it should be read by all electricians who care for more than superficial knowledge.

"It is most remarkable to note, at this time, how completely Ohm stated his famous law that the electromotive force divided by the resistance is equal to the strength of the current."

With regard to the book as a whole, Mr. Lockwood says, after suggesting certain anticipations of Ohm's ideas which had been made in the preceding century: "Ohm's work stands alone, and, reading it at the present time, one is filled with wonder at the prescience, respect for his patience and prophetic soul, and admiration of the immensity and variety of ground covered by his little book, which is indeed his best monument."

Like many another great discovery in physical science, Ohm's work failed to receive the immediate appreciation which it deserved. It cannot be said, however, that it failed to attract attention. It would be easier, indeed, to forgive the scientists of the day if this were true. Not long after its appearance, abstracts from it were made by Fechner in Leipzig, by Pfaff in Erlangen, and Poggendorff in Berlin, which showed that these scientists understood very clearly the significance and comprehended the wide application of Ohm's law as claimed by its author. From these men there was no question of hostile criticism. Professor Pohl, of the University of Berlin, however, in the Berlin "Year-book of Scientific Criticism," did not hesitate to express his utter disagreement, and declared that Ohm's work was fallacious and should be rejected. Other writers of the time treated Ohm's article more or less indifferently, as a merely conventional contribution to science.