"What does the V stand for?"
Count Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta was born in Como,
Lombardy, on February 18, 1745. Volta was born to nobility that had moved
down in social station. Unlike his siblings, young Alessandro did not enter
the church.
His young childhood did not show the makings of a prodigy. It was not until
the age of four that he talked, and his family was convinced that he was
retarded. However, at the age of seven when his father died, he was at the
level of other children and then began to march ahead. By the age of
fourteen, he made up his mind to be a physicist.
Volta became fascinated with the phenomenon of the age, electricity. He
became so enamored with it that he wrote an excellent Latin poem on the
subject. In 1774, he was appointed professor of physics in the Como high
school and the next year he invented electrophorous, a charge- accumulating
machine.
Volta's fame spread as result. In 1778, Volta was the first to isolate the
compound methane, a major constituent of natural gas.
Further, in 1779, he received a professorial appointment at the University
of Pavia, where he continued his work with electricity. He invented other
gadgets involving static electricity and received the Copley medal of the
Royal Society, where he was elected to membership, in 1791.
The major feat of his life involved not static electricity, but dynamic
electricity- the electric current. Following the experiments of Galvani, who
was a friend of his and sent copies of his papers on the subject, Volta
attacked the question of whether the electric current resulting when muscle
was in contact with two different metals arose from the tissue or from the
metals.
To check this he decided in 1794 to make use of the metals alone, without
the tissue. He found at once that an electric current resulted and
maintained that it therefore had nothing to do with life or tissue. This
sparked a controversy between the two Italians with the German Humboldt, the
chief of Galvani's supporters, and the Frenchman Coulomb, the chief of
Volta's. The weight of the evidence leaned more and more heavily toward
Volta, and Galvani died embittered.
In 1800 Volta virtually clinched the victory by constructing a device that
would produce a large flow of electricity. Volta's device was an "electric
battery"- the first in history. The invention of the battery lifted Volta's
fame to its pinnacle. He was called to France by Napoleon in 1801 for a kind
of "command performance"of his experiments. He received many medals and
decorations, including the Legion of Honor, and was even made a count and,
in 1810, a senator of the kingdom of Lombardy.
Throughout his life, though, Volta was able to shift with the changing
politics of the time and to remain in good graces with whatever government
was in power. After Napoleon fell and Austria became dominant in Italy once
more, Volta continued to excel and to receive posts of high honor. Volta
received his greatest honor, however, at the hands of no ruler, but of his
fellow scientists. The unit of electromotive force- the driving force that
moves the electric current- is now called the "volt." V
----- Original Message -----
From: "bob Larson" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, November 11, 2007 6:13 AM
Subject: CS>V=Volker?
-----Original Message-----
From: faith gagne [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Sunday, November 11, 2007 7:55 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: CS>LED therapy
What does the V stand for?
...first letter of first name.
i think it's Volker, but am probably off on the spelling at least.
Faith G
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