184 DISCOVERY CH. 



Ohm's law is of universal application in electrical 

 engineering, and few problems can be worked without 

 making use of it. Except at extremely low temperatures, 

 such as those of liquid air and helium, the law has been 

 proved to be true even when put to the most searching 

 tests. It is one of the most accurately known laws of 

 Nature, and the most important recorded in the whole 

 range of the history of electrical science. The name of 

 the modest student, who never strove for show or glory, 

 is to-day upon the lips of thousands who are busy with 

 the work of electro-technical industries. In 1889, on 

 the hundredth anniversary of his birth, the Royal 

 Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Munich, celebrated his 

 services to posterity by a special meeting, and an address 

 was given, in the course of which the following inspiring 

 passage occurs : 



The deeds of a man of science are his scientific investigations. 

 Truth once discovered does not remain shut up in the study or 

 the laboratory. When the moment comes, it bursts its narrow 

 bonds and joins the quick pulse of life. That which has been 

 discovered in solitude, in the unselfish struggle for knowledge, 

 in pure love of science, is often fated to be the mighty lever to 

 advance the culture of our race. When, nearly a hundred years 

 ago, Galvani saw the frog's legs twitch under the influence of two 

 metals touching, who could have suspected that the force of 

 Nature which caused those twitchings would transfer the thoughts 

 of man to far distant lands, with lightning's speed, under the 

 waters of the ocean would even render audible at a distance 

 the sound of the spoken word ? That this force of Nature 

 after man by ceaseless investigation had learned vastly to increase 

 its strength would illuminate our nights like the sun ! This 

 enormous development of electro-technology could only be 

 accomplished upon the firm foundation of Ohm's law. For only 

 he can govern a force of Nature who has mastered its law. Ohm, 

 by wresting from Nature her long-concealed secret, has placed 

 the sceptre of this dominion in the hands of the present. Prof. 

 E. von Lommel. 



