Resistor History

It is always useful and interesting to learn a little bit of history and background information about a topic. Below are some tid bits of information regarding the history resistors, Ohm's law, and the color coding system.

• A German physicist, Georg Ohm, did his work on resistance in the years 1825 and 1826, and published his results in 1827 as the book Die galvanische Kette, mathematisch bearbeitet The galvanic circuit investigated mathematically.
• Ohm's law was probably the most important of the early quantitative descriptions of the physics of electricity.
• Ohm's work did not become widely accepted until the 1840s. Fortunately, Ohm received recognition for his contributions to science well before he died.
• The electronic color code was developed in the early 1920s by the Radio Manufacturers Association (now part of Electronic Industries Alliance (EIA)).
• Colorbands were commonly used on resistors because they were easily printed on the tiny components, decreasing construction costs.
• At one time they all had only four color bands, generally printed on a burgundy colored body, and were physically large enough for all the colors to be seen and read easily.