24 Facts About Alessandro Volta

1.

Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta was an Italian physicist and chemist who was a pioneer of electricity and power who is credited as the inventor of the electric battery and the discoverer of methane.

2.

Alessandro Volta invented the voltaic pile in 1799, and reported the results of his experiments in 1800 in a two-part letter to the president of the Royal Society.

3.

Alessandro Volta's invention sparked a great amount of scientific excitement and led others to conduct similar experiments, which eventually led to the development of the field of electrochemistry.

4.

Alessandro Volta drew admiration from Napoleon Bonaparte for his invention, and was invited to the Institute of France to demonstrate his invention to the members of the institute.

5.

Alessandro Volta enjoyed a certain amount of closeness with the emperor throughout his life and he was conferred numerous honours by him.

6.

Alessandro Volta held the chair of experimental physics at the University of Pavia for nearly 40 years and was widely idolised by his students.

7.

In 1794, Alessandro Volta married an aristocratic lady from Como, Teresa Peregrini, with whom he raised three sons: Zanino, Flaminio, and Luigi.

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8.

Alessandro Volta researched and discovered methane after reading a paper by Benjamin Franklin of the United States on "flammable air".

9.

Alessandro Volta devised experiments such as the ignition of methane by an electric spark in a closed vessel.

10.

Alessandro Volta studied what we now call electrical capacitance, developing separate means to study both electrical potential difference and charge, and discovering that for a given object, they are proportional.

11.

Alessandro Volta's lectures were so crowded with students that the subsequent emperor Joseph II ordered the construction of a new "physical theater", today the "Aula Alessandro Volta".

12.

Alessandro Volta realised that the frog's leg served as both a conductor of electricity and as a detector of electricity.

13.

Alessandro Volta understood that the frog's legs were irrelevant to the electric current, which was caused by the two differing metals.

14.

Alessandro Volta replaced the frog's leg with brine-soaked paper, and detected the flow of electricity by other means familiar to him from his previous studies.

15.

In 1800, as the result of a professional disagreement over the galvanic response advocated by Galvani, Alessandro Volta invented the voltaic pile, an early electric battery, which produced a steady electric current.

16.

Alessandro Volta had determined that the most effective pair of dissimilar metals to produce electricity was zinc and copper.

17.

The battery made by Alessandro Volta is credited as one of the first electrochemical cells.

18.

In 1809, Alessandro Volta became associated member of the Royal Institute of the Netherlands.

19.

In honour of his work, Alessandro Volta was made a count by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1810.

20.

Alessandro Volta retired in 1819 to his estate in Camnago, a frazione of Como, Italy, now named "Camnago Alessandro Volta" in his honour.

21.

Alessandro Volta died there on 5 March 1827, just after his 82nd birthday.

22.

Alessandro Volta's legacy is celebrated by the Tempio Voltiano memorial located in the public gardens by the lake.

23.

Alessandro Volta carried out his experimental studies and produced his first inventions near Como.

24.

Alessandro Volta was raised as a Catholic and for all of his life continued to maintain his belief.