Ohm's law states that the current through a conductor between two points is directly proportional to the potential

difference across the two points, and inversely proportional to the resistance between them.[1] The mathematical equation that describes this relationship is:[2]

Voltage, otherwise known as electrical potential difference or electric tension (denoted V and measured in volts, or joules per coulomb) is the difference in electric potential between two points or the difference in electric potential energy per unit charge between two points.[1] Voltage is equal to thework which would have to be done, per unit charge, against a static electric field to move the charge between two points. A voltage may represent either a source of energy (electromotive force), or it may represent lost or stored energy (potential drop). A voltmeter can be used to measure the voltage (or potential difference) between two points in a system; usually a common reference potential such as the ground of the system is used as one of the points. Voltage can be caused by static electric fields, by electric current through a magnetic field, by time-varying magnetic fields, or a combination of all three.[2][3]

Electric current is a flow of electric charge through a medium.[1] This charge is typically carried by moving electrons in a conductor such as wire. It can also be carried by ions in an electrolyte, or by both ions and electrons in a plasma.[2] The SI unit for measuring the rate of flow of electric charge is the ampere, which is charge flowing through some surface at the rate of one coulomb per second. Electric current is measured using an ammeter.[1]
The electrical resistance of an electrical element measures its opposition to the passage of an electric current; the inverse quantity is electrical conductance, measuring how easily electricity flows along a certain path. Electrical resistance shares some conceptual parallels with the mechanical notion of friction. The SI unit of electrical resistance is the ohm (), while electrical conductance is measured in siemens (S). An object of uniform cross section has a resistance proportional to its resistivity and length and inversely proportional to its cross-sectional area. All materials show some resistance, except for superconductors, which have a resistance of zero. The resistance of an object is defined as the ratio of voltage across it to current through it:

where I is the current through the conductor in units of amperes, V is the potential difference measured across the conductor in units of volts, and R is theresistance of the conductor in units of ohms. More specifically, Ohm's law states that the R in this relation is constant, independent of the current.[3]

The law was named after the German physicist Georg Ohm, who, in a treatise published in 1827, described measurements of applied voltage and current through simple electrical circuits containing various lengths of wire. He presented a slightly more complex equation than the one above (see History section below) to explain his experimental results. The above equation is the modern form of Ohm's law. In physics, the term Ohm's law is also used to refer to various generalizations of the law originally formulated by Ohm. The simplest example of this is:

where J is the current density at a given location in a resistive material, E is the electric field at that location, and is a material dependent parameter called the conductivity. This reformulation of Ohm's law is due to Gustav Kirchhoff.[4]