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Ohm, detail of a lithograph (credit: Historia-Photo)

(born March 16, 1789, Erlangen, Bavaria — died July 6, 1854, Munich) German physicist. While teaching mathematics at the Jesuits' College in Cologne (1817 – 27), he discovered that the flow of electric current through a conductor is directly proportional to the potential difference, or voltage, and inversely proportional to the resistance. He resigned when his theory (Ohm's law) was coldly received. His theory soon came to be widely recognized, and he subsequently taught in Nürnberg (1833 – 49) and Munich (1849 – 54). The physical unit measuring electrical resistance was named for him.

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