Background
He was born in the Bavarian town of Erlangen, on March 16, 1787, the son of a locksmith. His mother died when he was ten. Of the seven children of the family only three survived to adulthood.
His family was poor, but his father encouraged him to indulge in the study of mathematics, for which he showed a particular aptitude.
Education
The father, a self-sacrificing autodidact, gave his sons a solid education in mathematics, physics, chemistry, and the philosophies of Kant and Fichte; their considerable mathematical ability was recognized in 1804 by the Erlangen professor Karl Christian von Langsdorf, who enthusiastically likened them to the Bernoullis.
On 3 May 1805 he matriculated at the University of Erlangen, where he studied for three semesters until his father’s displeasure at his supposed overindulgence in dancing, billiards, and ice skating forced him to withdraw in virtual exile to rural Switzerland.
By Easter of 1811 Ohm was back at the University of Erlangen, where on 25 October, after having passed the required examinations, he received the Ph. D.
Career
He subsequently taught mathematics for three semesters as a Privatdozent, his only university affiliation until near the end of his life.
Lack of money and the poor prospects for advancement at Erlangen forced Ohm to seek other employment from the Bavarian government; but the best he could obtain was a post as a teacher of mathematics and physics at the low-prestige, poorly attended Realschule in Bamberg, where he worked with great dissatisfaction from January 1813 until the school’s dissolution on 17 February 1816.
Unhappy with his job, Georg began writing an elementary textbook on geometry as a way to prove his abilities. Ohm's school was closed down in February 1816. The Bavarian government then sent him to an overcrowded school in Bamberg to help out with the teaching of mathematics. After his assignment in Bamberg, Ohm sent his completed manuscript to King Wilhelm III of Prussia. The King was satisfied with Ohm's book, and offered Ohm a position at the Jesuit Gymnasium of Cologne on 11 September 1817.
Ohm published Die galvanische Kette, mathematisch bearbeitet (The Galvanic Circuit Investigated Mathematically) in 1827. Ohm's college did not appreciate his work and Ohm resigned from his position. He then made an application to, and was employed by, the Polytechnic School of Nuremberg. Ohm arrived at the Polytechnic School of Nuremberg in 1833, and in 1852 he became a professor of experimental physics at the University of Munich.
Ohm's law first appeared in the famous book 'Die galvanische Kette, mathematisch bearbeitet, in which he gave his complete theory of electricity. Ohm believed that the communication of electricity occurred between "contiguous particles" which is the term he himself used. 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.
Religion
He was born into a Protestant family.
Membership
He became a foreign member of the Royal Society in 1842, and in 1845 he became a full member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities.