Alessandro Volta invented the first battery, the voltaic pile, in 1799 and announced it in a letter to the Royal Society dated 20 March 1800. It stacked silver…
A glass jar could store static charge, but it gave one spark and then had to be recharged by hand.
Dissected frog legs kicked when touched by electricity, and even when brass hooks met an iron rail.
Galvani argued animals store their own electricity, like a living Leyden jar.
Repeating the tests, Volta found the twitch needed two different metals. The frog, he said, was just a detector.
Galvani made a frog muscle contract when its own nerve touched it, with no metal at all.
A stack of silver or copper and zinc discs with brine-soaked pads between them.
Volta wrote to Sir Joseph Banks on 20 March 1800. The letter was read in London on 26 June.
Nicholson and Carlisle used a pile to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.
Volta demonstrated the pile in Paris with Napoleon present and won a gold medal.
Humphry Davy used giant batteries to isolate potassium and sodium.
A wire carrying battery current deflected a compass needle, linking electricity and magnetism.
Daniell's steady cell, Plante's rechargeable lead-acid and the portable dry cell.
Sony sold the first lithium-ion cells; their inventors won the 2019 Nobel Prize.
Both: Galvani founded electrophysiology, Volta electrochemistry. Como marks his bicentenary.
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