James Baquet

    After meeting James Watt and Aloysius Galvani, today we’ll meet Alessandro Volta (1745-1827), yet a third scientist whose name has become associated with a common noun describing electricity. This time, it’s the “volt.”

    Volta is credited with inventing the first electrical battery, and with first identifying methane, isolating it from swamp gas after reading about “flammable air” in a paper by the American Benjamin Franklin.

    As one might expect, Volta and Galvani, who were contemporaries, were also colleagues. They engaged in a disagreement over the nature of Galvani’s “animal electricity.” As the two were gentlemen, the rivalry was amiable. (In fact, in 1810, Volta was created a Count by Napoleon Bonaparte in recognition of his work.)

    Galvani had postulated that the leg of a dead frog, when subjected to contact with two different metals, produced electricity. Volta asserted that the leg merely conducted electricity, but didn’t generate it itself. To prove his point, Volta invented the “Voltaic pile,” which caused electrons to flow between two different materials — as Volta discovered, ideally zinc and copper. This is the principle used to this day in manufacturing batteries. He then sent a charge through the dead frog’s leg, and it kicked.

    As it turned out, Alexander von Humboldt proved that both men were correct (and therefore, in a way, both were wrong): in fact, as Galvani said, the frogs’ legs did generate a small amount of electricity, a phenomenon known as bioelectrogenesis (an element of the science called electrophysiology). However, as Volta proved, electricity could be generated outside of the frog’s legs and fed into them with wires.

    Volta’s “pile” — introduced in 1800 — in turn was used throughout the 19th century in a host of other discoveries, including the separation of water into hydrogen and oxygen, and the isolation of such common elements as sodium, potassium, and calcium.

    Today, the volt is the International System of Units (SI) designation for electric potential and electromotive force (emf).

    Vocabulary:

    Which word above means:

    1. mist rising from a marshy area

    2. connected (with), related (to)

    3. able to catch fire

    4. exposed (to), put under the influence (of)

    5. name, indication

    6. carried on, managed

    7. separating from other things

    8. recognized (for)

    9. friendly

    10. create

    11. suggested, claimed