Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 83.djvu/616

unfavorable reception of Ohm's conclusions. Professor H. W. Dove, of Berlin, says that, "in the Berlin Jahrbucher für wissenschaftliche Kritik, Ohm's theory was named a web of naked fancies, which could never find the semblance of support from even the most superficial observation of facts." "He who looks at the world," proceeds the writer, "with the eye of reverence must turn aside from this book as the result of an incurable delusion, whose sole effect is to detract from the dignity of nature."

In seeking to explain how this extraordinary opinion came to be held the following facts will be of aid:

1. The paper containing Ohm's principal experimental results was published in a German scientific periodical and has never been translated, whereas his theoretical deductions, published in German the very next year, have since gone through two English and one French edition. The theoretical results were therefore far more widely diffused than were the experimental. Indeed it would be easy for a reader of both publications to confuse the priority of two so nearly simultaneous documents.

2. It was only by virtue of the recognition, tardily but distinctly rendered, on the part of Fechner in Germany, Lenz in Russia, Wheatstone and others in England, that Ohm came out of obscurity. Until this was the case and recognition was given by men of recognized standing, there was little reason why any more attention should be given Dr. Ohm and his meager set of experiments than to a number of equally reliable and equally little-known workers, whose results disagreed with his.

3. To whatever extent the English translation may be supposed to have supplied information as to the degree of interdependence of theory and experiment matters could not have been helped by an inexcusable error of translation of a sentence, the German of which is as follows: "Die Grosse des Überganges zwischen zwei zunachst beisamen elementen habe ich unter übrigens gleichen umständen dem Unterschiede der in beiden Elementem befindlichen elektrischen Kräfte proportional gesetzt." This sentence occurs near the beginning of the book and immediately after an intimation that his hypothesis depends in part on experiment, and a wrong rendering must have conveyed a false impression of the real character of the experiments, and therefore of their value. The rendition of this important sentence is: "The magnitude of the transition between two adjacent particles under otherwise exactly similar circumstances, I have assumed as being proportional to the difference of their temperatures."^[1] How the word "temperature" came to be rendered for "elektrischen Kräfte" is difficult to see, and it can not be called an improvement on the original.

4. In his paper of 1826 Ohm did not very fully set forth part II.

1. A correct translation is given on a former page.