Alessandro Volta Presentation made by Jacopo Alaimo

Early Life Alessandro Volta was born the 18 th of February 1745 in Como, Italy. When he was in his teens, he decided to be a scientist. So in 1774, at the age of 30, he became a physics professor at the Royal School in Como. Then one year later, he was appointed professor of physics at the University of Pavia. In the years between he studied the chemistry of gases and descovered methane by reading a paper written by Benjamin Franklin on “flammable air”. In November, of 1776, he found methane at Lake Maggiore and then finally, in 1778, he managed to isolate methane. Alessandro Volta

Volta and Galvani In 1780 a friend of Volta’s, a scientist as him called Luigi Galvani, told him about an experiment that he had tried. Galvani explained that he was cutting up frogs and was holding their muscles up on a brass hook. One muscle had come in contact with some iron wire and it had twitched. Galvani thought that the muscle was producing its own electricity but Volta didn’t quite agree. In fact, he showed him that the contact was with the two different metals and not with the muscle and the wire. This contact with the hook and the wire made the muscle twitch. Luigi Galvani

Volta’s Experiment Volta did many experiments to find out about the electricity that could be produced. One of these experiments consisted in taking two piles of coins, each pile made of a different metal, and separated them with card soaked in a salt solution. This produced an electric current and was, in fact, the world’s first battery. Volta became very famous. Even Napoleon rewarded him by giving him the title of Count. Then at last, in 1827, he died at the age of 82 there in Como. Volta’s legacy is celebrated by a Temple located in the public gardens by the lake. It is also a museum which has been built in his honour and some of his original equipment is shown. The volt was then named after him in Furthermore, he was depicted upon the italian 10,000 Lire.

Of course, if Alessandro Volta didn’t invent the battery, the electric objects we have now could have not been used because without a battery these objects can’t work. So we are so lucky that Alessandro Volta was brought to light. The museums have immediately major renovations on the becentenial of the invention of the battery. To these were added several temporary exhibitions that have toured Italy, Europe and the world.