Short Biography: Count Alessandro Volta
April 24, 2013
Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta, known to most as Count Alessandro Volta, is an Italian physicist from Como, Lombardy, Italy. He lived to be eighty-two years old from February 18, 1745 to March 5, 1827.
As a young boy he was educated in the public school system of Italy. He was encouraged by his parents and teachers to study law, but Volta had a true passion for physics. Thus, he began his scientific journey at the age of fourteen. Throughout his life, Alessandro Volta had many personal accomplishments. His first, and most important, was his ability to face and overcome adversity when he was to greatly encouraged by his parents and teachers to study law, but decided to do what he knew and loved, science. He became a professor of physics at the Royal School in Como, Italy in 1774. Then a few years later he transferred his teachings to the University of Pavia where he remained for twenty-five years. In the year 1794, Volta received the Copley Medal form the Royal School in London for all of his achievements in the scientific field. In 1810, Volta received the Order of the Iron Crown from Napoleon I which gave Volta the title of “Count Alessandro Volta”. All of Volta’s accomplishments got him a respectable reputation so that others knew they could trust whenever he made new discoveries that would come later on in his life. Volta’s contribution to the scientific world was in the field of electricity with his creation of the Voltaic Pile in 1800. This is what we know now as the battery. This new development of the Voltaic Pile gave others the ability to power new technology with a portable electric source.
The Voltaic Pile supported already existing research because the idea originally came from a scientist name Luigi Galvani who was dissecting a frog outside and when the frog’s leg twitched, Galvani believed there was some sort of electrical action in the air. In order to test this, Volta modified the experiment that Galvani made.
Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta, known to most as Count Alessandro Volta, is an Italian physicist from Como, Lombardy, Italy. He lived to be eighty-two years old from February 18, 1745 to March 5, 1827.
As a young boy he was educated in the public school system of Italy. He was encouraged by his parents and teachers to study law, but Volta had a true passion for physics. Thus, he began his scientific journey at the age of fourteen. Throughout his life, Alessandro Volta had many personal accomplishments. His first, and most important, was his ability to face and overcome adversity when he was to greatly encouraged by his parents and teachers to study law, but decided to do what he knew and loved, science. He became a professor of physics at the Royal School in Como, Italy in 1774. Then a few years later he transferred his teachings to the University of Pavia where he remained for twenty-five years. In the year 1794, Volta received the Copley Medal form the Royal School in London for all of his achievements in the scientific field. In 1810, Volta received the Order of the Iron Crown from Napoleon I which gave Volta the title of “Count Alessandro Volta”. All of Volta’s accomplishments got him a respectable reputation so that others knew they could trust whenever he made new discoveries that would come later on in his life. Volta’s contribution to the scientific world was in the field of electricity with his creation of the Voltaic Pile in 1800. This is what we know now as the battery. This new development of the Voltaic Pile gave others the ability to power new technology with a portable electric source.
The Voltaic Pile supported already existing research because the idea originally came from a scientist name Luigi Galvani who was dissecting a frog outside and when the frog’s leg twitched, Galvani believed there was some sort of electrical action in the air. In order to test this, Volta modified the experiment that Galvani made.
Bibliography: Darling, David. “Volta, Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio.” The Encyclopedia of Science. 2013. Web. May 5, 2013. Peggy Saari, Marie C. Ellavich, Stephen Allison. Scientist: Their Lives and Works. Farmington Hills: Gale, 2006. Print Basalla, George. “Volta: Science and Culture in the Age of the Enlightenment.” Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 1 January 2012: 146. Print. Cima, Michael. “Inventor of the Week: Alessandro Volta.” LEMELS N-MIT. MIT Lemelson Program, 2013. Web. May 5, 2013.