Electric battery Luigi Galvani It didn’t just happen Remote control Commentary

Alessandro Volta electromagnetism

Electric battery

• We name the unit of electric potential the ‘volt’
• to honor Alessandro Volta
• because he created the voltaic pile
• the first electric battery.
• Scientists already had the electrophorus and the Leyden jar,
• devices that produce and store
• a static electrical charge.
• Now, for the first time,
• scientists had a continuous source
• of electricity to study.

Luigi Galvani

• Luigi Galvani was trying to prove
• that a frog’s testicles
• were in its legs
• and accidentally twitched a muscle
• when his steel scalpel
• touched the brass hook
• that held the leg in place.
• Galvani interpreted this accident as an instance
• of animal electric fluid
• conducted by the scalpel
• from the muscle to the nerve.
• Volta realized that the electricity
• could be created without the frog,
• which he replaced with a piece of paper
• soaked in brine.
• Volta coined the term ‘galvanic cell’
• to honor his friend Galvani
• describing an electrochemical cell
• in which two plates of different metals
• separated by an electrolyte
• produce electricity.

It didn’t just happen

• Before Luii showed Alessandro his twitching frog leg
• Alessandro had already done an experiment.
• He had put a coin of one metal
• under his tongue
• and another coin of a different metal
• on top of his tongue.
• When he connected the two coins with a wire
• the coins tasted salty.

Remote control

• Without the frog
• muscles can still be made to twitch
• and pistols can still be fired
• from the other end of a wire.
• Soon enough, performances and sports events
• would be created for only remote viewers
• who would be given only token control.