As a school teacher, Ohm began his research with the new electrochemical cell, invented by Italian scientist Alessandro Volta.

Using equipment of his own creation, Ohm found that there is a direct proportionality between the potential difference (voltage) applied across a conductor and the resultant electric current.

[4] Of the seven children of the family only three survived to adulthood: Georg Simon, his younger brother Martin, who later became a well-known mathematician, and his sister Elizabeth Barbara.

From early childhood, Georg and Martin were taught by their father who brought them to a high standard in mathematics, physics, chemistry and philosophy.

This characteristic made the Ohms bear a resemblance to the Bernoulli family, as noted by Karl Christian von Langsdorf, a professor at the University of Erlangen.

Rather reluctantly Ohm took his advice but he left his teaching post in Gottstatt Monastery in March 1809 to become a private tutor in Neuchâtel.

The Bavarian government offered him a post as a teacher of mathematics and physics at a poor quality school in Bamberg which Ohm accepted in January 1813.

This school had a reputation for good science education and Ohm was required to teach physics in addition to mathematics.

However, on finding that an original discovery recorded in it was being anticipated by a Swedish scientist he did not publish it, stating: "The episode has given a fresh and deep sense for my mind to the saying 'Man proposes, and God disposes'.

[9] Ohm's law first appeared[a] in the famous book Die galvanische Kette, mathematisch bearbeitet (The Galvanic Circuit Investigated Mathematically) (1827) in which he gave his complete theory of electricity.

[13] The work of Ohm marked the early beginning of the subject of circuit theory, although this did not become an important field until the end of the century.

This work, the germ of which had appeared during the two preceding years in the journals of Schweigger and Poggendorff, has exerted an important influence on the development of the theory and applications of electric current.