Alessandro Volta (1745-1827)

Alessandro Volta was an Italian scientist whose skepticism of Luigi Galvani’s theory of animal electricity led him to propose that an electrical current is generated by contact between different metals. Volta’s theoretical and experimental work in this area resulted in his construction of the first battery. Known as the voltaic pile, Volta’s battery made available for the first time a sustainable source of electrical current. Using the innovative apparatus, a number of his contemporaries, such as William Nicholson and Sir Humphry Davy, made important scientific advances in the early 19th century.
Volta, whose full name was Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta, was born on February 18, 1745, in the town of Como in Lombardy, Italy. His family was part of the aristocracy but was not particularly wealthy. Volta’s father died when Volta was only 7, and the boy’s education was overseen by relatives associated with the church. Volta was expected to embark on an ecclesiastical career, but he developed an early interest in science and decided to follow a different path. He related many of his earliest scientific ideas to French physicist Jean-Antoine Nollet and prominent Italian men of science with whom he regularly corresponded while still a teenager.

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