Alessandro Volta(1745 — 1827)
Alessandro Volta
duché de Milan, royaume de Lombardie-Vénétie, République cisalpine
10 min read
Italian physicist (1745–1827), Alessandro Volta invented the electric battery in 1800, the first source of direct current in history. His work on electricity revolutionized experimental physics and paved the way for electrochemistry.
Famous Quotes
« Electricity is not simply a natural phenomenon — it is a tool that man can master. »
Key Facts
- Born in Como (Italy) in 1745
- Invention of the electrophorus in 1775, a machine for generating static electricity
- Invention of the voltaic pile in 1800, the first electric battery in history
- The unit of electrical voltage, the volt, is named in his honor
- Died in Como in 1827
Works & Achievements
Volta's first printed memoir, published in Como. In it, he outlines his initial hypotheses on the nature of electric fire and its attractive force, following in the tradition of Franklin's theories.
A device capable of generating electric charges through electrostatic induction repeatedly without recharging the source. This invention brought him immediate recognition across Europe and allowed him to correspond with the greatest physicists of his time.
Volta isolates and characterizes methane ("inflammable air from marshes") and devises a method for collecting and igniting it with an electric spark. It stands as one of the earliest identifications of a pure combustible gas distinct from hydrogen.
An instrument for detecting and measuring very weak electric potentials by combining a capacitor with a gold-leaf electroscope. It made quantitative measurements in electrostatics possible where none had been achievable before.
Published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (vol. 90, 1800), this letter describes the voltaic pile for the first time. It stands as one of the founding documents of modern electrical engineering and electrochemistry.
The first source of continuous electric current in history, made up of zinc-copper pairs separated by moist electrolytes. It immediately opened the way to electrolysis, electromagnetism, and, a century later, industrial electrical engineering.
Anecdotes
Volta and Luigi Galvani, his fellow Italian from Bologna, clashed in a scientific debate that became famous as the “frog war.” Galvani believed he had discovered an “animal electricity” unique to living tissue, having observed frog legs contract when touched with metals. Volta rigorously demonstrated that the electricity came from the contact between two different metals, not from the muscles. This foundational disagreement led directly to the invention of the battery in 1800.
In November 1801, Volta was summoned to Paris to present his battery before Napoleon Bonaparte, who was then First Consul. So captivated was he by the demonstration that Napoleon had a session of the Institut de France interrupted so he could question the scientist himself. He awarded Volta a gold medal, a pension, and, a few years later, the title of count and the rank of senator of the Kingdom of Italy.
In 1776, Volta discovered methane by collecting gases escaping from the marshes of Lake Maggiore. He stirred bubbles to the surface with a stick, collected them in an inverted container, and set them alight: the blue flame that appeared confirmed to him that this was a new combustible gas. He called this substance *aria infiammabile nativa delle paludi* — the native inflammable air of the marshes.
When he announced his invention of the battery to the president of the Royal Society of London, Joseph Banks, on 20 March 1800, Volta described his device as a “column” of alternating zinc and copper discs, separated by cloth discs soaked in salt water. This letter, translated and published within weeks in the Philosophical Transactions, sent shockwaves through the European scientific community: for the first time, a continuous, controllable electric current was available.
Volta long suffered from a reputation as a slow child within his family: he did not speak his first words until he was four years old. His family even considered placing him in a specialist institution. Yet by the age of seven he had caught up with his peers, and by fourteen he was already corresponding with the French physicist Jean-Antoine Nollet on matters of electricity.
Primary Sources
The apparatus of which I speak, and which will, no doubt, astonish you, is only an assemblage of a number of good conductors of different kinds arranged in a certain manner. Thirty, forty, sixty or more pieces of copper, or rather silver, applied each to a piece of tin, or zinc, which is much better, and as many strata of water, or any other liquid which may be a better conductor than pure water…
L'elettricità che si manifesta nel contatto dei metalli è puramente metallica, e non ha nulla in comune con quella pretesa elettricità animale del Galvani. I muscoli della rana non sono altro che uno strumento rivelatore dell'elettricità sviluppata dal contatto dei due metalli dissimili.
Electricus ignis ex nubibus per fulmen in terram devolat, et terrae calorem auget; quod phaenomenon nisi attractivis viribus electricis explicari non potest… Tentabo igitur ostendere quomodo haec vis attractiva cum aliis electricis phaenomenis cohaereat.
Ho trovato nelle acque paludose del lago Maggiore una gran quantità di aria infiammabile. Raccogliendola con cura e applicandovi una scintilla, essa brucia con una fiamma azzurrognola assai bella, diversa dall'idrogeno puro. Questo gas mi sembra una sostanza nuova e degna di ulteriori indagini.
L'elettroforo è uno strumento capace di fornire cariche elettriche in quantità quasi inesauribile senza alcun sfregamento ripetuto, sfruttando unicamente l'induzione elettrostatica su un disco di resina elettrizzato una sola volta. Esso supera in comodità e in potenza tutte le macchine elettrostatiche conosciute.
Key Places
Volta's birthplace and the city where he died, spending most of his life there. The city dedicated a neoclassical temple to him (the Tempio Voltiano), inaugurated in 1927 on the centenary of his death, which preserves his original scientific instruments.
Volta was appointed professor of experimental physics here in 1779 and taught for forty years. It was in this academic setting that he conducted his research on animal electricity, designed the condensing electroscope, and ultimately invented the electric battery.
In November 1801, Volta demonstrated his battery here before Napoleon Bonaparte and the members of the Institut de France. This historic session earned him France's highest distinctions and secured his invention's international fame.
It was while exploring the marshy shores of Lake Maggiore in 1776 that Volta collected gas bubbles rising to the surface and identified methane. These naturalist field excursions illustrate the hands-on experimental method characteristic of Enlightenment physicists.
It was at the University of Bologna that Galvani conducted his experiments on frogs, corresponded with Volta, and where the two scientists met. This scientific dialogue — sometimes contentious — was the direct breeding ground for the invention of the battery.