Alessandro Volta (1745-1827)

Personal Life

Volta was an Italian physicist born in Como, February 18, 1745. He was not an infant prodigy at all. He didn't talk until he was four and his family was convinced he was retarded. He finally caught up and began to exceed other children when he reached age 7.He strode at the Royal Seminary in Come, where he was an outstanding scholar in Rheturic. He showed a lot of interest in chemistry, poetry, and drama.

In 1774, he was appointed professor of physics at the Royal School in Come. In 1779, Volta became the professor of physics at the University of Pavia; he remained there for 25 years.

In 1801, honours were showered on Volta by the academies and learned societies of Europe. Napoleon invited him to Paris and made him an associate member of the Institute de France and later a senator of the Kingdom of Italy. In 1815 the Emperor of Austria appointed him director of the philosophical faculty of the University of Padua, a dignity which he resigned four years later in order to retire into private life. In the summer of 1899, the centenary of the invention of the voltaic battery, an exposition was held in Como of electrical apparatus constructed and used by Volta in his investigations, but unfortunately a fire broke out and many of these heirlooms of science were destroyed. Three practical units have been named after Catholic electrical pioneers; the volt, the unit of electrical pressure, in honour of Volta; the coulomb, the unit of electrical quantity, in honour of Charles Augustin de Coulomb; and the ampere, the unit of current, in honour of Andree-Marie Ampeere

Significance to Physics

One of Volta's first experiments was to invent the electrophorus. It was remarkably well perfected. The electrophorus is a charge-accumulating machiine, which replaced the Leyden jar. In simplest terms, negative charges are repelled upward, and positive charges are pulled downward. The negative charges can be drawn off, and the process is repeated until a strong charge is built up in the plate with a handle.

Volta was most known for being the inventor of our everyday batteries. He had the very first and it was called a voltaic pile. In its simplest form it consists of an alternating strip of copper and strip of zinc immersed in sulfuric acid.

Another form of Volta's voltaic pile, was his voltaic cell. He showed this experiment to Napoleon in the 1800's. He used bowls of salt solution which were connected by means of arcs of metal dipping from one bowl into the next, one end of the arc being copper and the other tin or zinc. This produced a steady flow of electrical current. Since any group of similar objects working as a unit may be called a battery, Volta's device was then called an electric battery.

Interesting Facts

-Alessandro Volta made the very first battery.
-Alessandro Volta was made a count by Napoleon himself!
-As a child, he was quite a lot intellectually inferior to the other children.
-His parents were convinced he was retarded.
-He never spoke until he was 7 years old.
-The Volt was named after him (duh)
-He was also the inventor of many other things

Conclusion

If it wasnt for Volta’s research and hard, we might have ever had the invention of the battery. Realize it or not, the battery has become a very key role in the life styles of today. From TV remote’s to your alarm clock, none could be powered independently without the battery. If Volta never had to make the first battery, only god knows where our society would be today, it was most likely very important for other new inventions to get made, since power of this type and size was not available before. Alessandro Volta was definetely a key role in the development of our society as we know it. I think that Volta doesnt receive enough credit, god knows that basically no one knows who invented that battery, they take it for granted. Some people probably think that the energizer bunny created the battery for Pete’s sakes.