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Traveling
with the Atom
Allegheny College Compiled by Glen E.
Rodgers
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Italian Physicist and Inventor |
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Traveling
with the Atom
Allegheny College Compiled by Glen E.
Rodgers
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Italian Physicist and Inventor |
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| Count Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta was born in Como Italy where he attended a public grammar school. After grammar school, he quit formal studies. At age 14, he independently became interested in electricity, and at that time, he decided that he wanted to become a physicist. He began to teach physics at the Royal School in Como in 1774. His greatest contributions to the chemical and physical world were instruments that he invented while studying electricity. In 1775, Volta developed an instrument called the "perpetual electrophorus" that could produce and store an electrostatic charge without a constant source of electrostatic energy, as other apparatuses needed at that time. In 1778, Volta was appointed chair of the experimental physics department of th University of Pavia, a position for approximately 40 years. In 1800, Volta developed his most momentous invention, what is now known as the voltaic cell, the first source of continous current and the forerunner of the common battery. He found that a current was conducted when a wire connected the two ends of a series of alternating copper and zinc disks separated with a cloth soaked in an electrolyte such as brine. This ingenuity led to the development of the an entirely new field of study, now called electrochemistry. |
| Biography of Alessandro Volta from the following site: "Biographies of Famous Electrochemists and Physicists Contributed to Understanding of Electricity" compiled by Dr. Eugenii Katz |
| Bicentennial of the Invention of the Pile website: English Version |
| Volta Photo Gallery |
Some Web Sources on the History of Atomic Scientists:
The
History of Chemistry 1992 Woodrow Wilson Summer Institute
Selected
Classic Papers from the History of Chemistry
Classic
Papers from the History of Chemistry (and Some Physics too)
Classic Chemistry
compiled by Carmen Giunta
History of Science
website by Charlesworth
Center for the History of Physics
Echo Exploring & Collecting
History Online
Atom:
The Incredible World: The History of Atomistics
Nobel Prize WebPage
Biographies
of Famous Chemists, University of Liverpool
University
of Pennsylvania Biographies
Chemistry:
A History
Famous
Scientists greatly who contributed to "electro" science: electricity, electromagnetism,
electrical
technology, electronics, electrical telegraphy, radio, electrochemistry,
electromedicine, etc.
Elements
and Atoms: Case Studies in the Development of Chemistry
| Sacks, Oliver. Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood. Knopf, New York: 2001. | pp. 119, 160,163,194 |
| Asimov, Isaac. Asimov's Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. Doubleday, Garden City: 1982 | pp. 228-229 |
| Dibner, Bern. Alessandro Volta and the Electric Battery. Franklin Watts, New York: 1964. | Pera, Marcello. The Ambiguous Frog: The Galvani-Volta Controversy on Animal Electricity. Princeton, 1992. (Out of print) |
| Birthplace of Volta | Website about Como, Italy, the birthplace of Volta:
http://www.traveleurope.it/itinerari/c/como.shtml |
| Inside View of the Voltian Temple | Use arrow keys or mouse to view the temple from different perspectives: Tempio Voltiano |
| Physics Department of the University of Pavia, where Volta was chair for 40 years | Alessandro Volta Department of Physics hompage: http://fisicavolta.unipv.it/index.htm |
* see following Rodgers link to scientific/historical sites for further information.
(1) Taken from The Scientific Traveler, Charles Tanford and Jacqueline, John Wiley & Sons, NY (1992).
(2) Taken from A Travel Guide to Scientific Sites of the British Isles, Charles Tanford and Jacqueline Reynolds, John Wiley & Sons, NY (1995).
(3) Taken from Guide of Eurpoean Museums with collections on History of Chemistry, compiled by Jan W. van Spronsen, Federation of European Societies, Antwerp (1996)
Links to Dr. Rodgers' Scientific/Historical Sites
will be available here.
| Scientific Historical Traveling | Rodgers Home Page |
