The Voltaic battery (1800)

The history of electricity

Invented by Alessandro Volta in 1800, the voltaic battery is nothing less than the very first source of stable electric current. Volta conceived it as part of his campaign against Galvani’s theory of “animal electricity”.

Galvani had shown that two metals connected to the crural nerves of a frog’s corpse caused sudden muscle contractions in the latter. This led to his “animal electricity” theory, but Volta was convinced that electricity came from the metals: to prove his point, he stacked zinc and copper discs separated by fabric soaked in salt water. With the water acting as a conductor, a chemical reaction took place between the zinc and copper: an exchange of electrons that generated an electric current. This is the principle of the electric battery.

And so the battery is right next to Volta in the fresco. Its output, termed direct current, lasts much longer than that of Musschenbroek’s Leyden jar.

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