[RAA Note: Considered retarded at 4, Volta became among the greatest 
scientists of the modern scientific era.]
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FROM THE WORLD OF SCIENCE

We have used batteries, and we know that they are marked 1.5 volts, 6 volts,
or whatever. And we have heard of 110 volt lines and 220 volt sources and
the like. So where did this volt-measuring come from?

This measure of a property of electricity is named after an Italian Count
with the penta-part name of Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio 
Anastasio Volta (born: 18 February 1745).

He was a good Catholic, educated in a Jesuit school. His intelligence and
abilities could make him a good Jesuit priest, thought some of his teachers.
It is said that with chocolates and other sweet things they persuaded him to
the calling, but an uncle of his, a Dominican himself, snatched the nephew
away from such possibilities.

Volta was very much interested in electricity which was in its infancy in
the second half of the 18th century. He pictured that in every body there is
normally a net neutral condition in which all electrical attractions are
neutralized. This situation can be altered by some external means which
would alter the relative configuration of the particles. In this
electrically unstable state the body becomes electrically charged.

Even with this not quite correct concept of a single kind of electricity,
Volta devised some very creative experiments to study electrical induction,
thanks to his experimental ingenuity. He invented devices in which electric
charge could be stored.

His reputation quickly spread and he received grants to travel to other
countries from his native Como, during which he had the opportunity to meet
many eminent scientists of the time. Finally he received a teaching position
at the University of Pavia where for four decades he taught and did most of
his fundamental research.

Inspired by the work of De Saussure (February 17) Volta got interested in
meteorology and atmospheric electricity. He improved the electrical
instruments of the Swiss geologist, and made them more sensitive and more
precise. He devised ways to measure what he called the electrical tension
which was to be refined in later years as the volt.

Volta improved another instrument of the times: the eudiometer, used to
measure the volume and composition of gases, With this, he estimated that
ordinary air contains about 21% oxygen. His instrument also helped
Lavoisier in the discovery of the composition of water (now known to
everyone as H-2-O). Volta discovered the inflammable gas which bubbles out
in marshes: methane, which is a major source of energy in our own times.

When Volta heard about Galvani's animal electricity (9 September) he first
dismissed it as unbelievable. Then he tried to repeat the experiment
himself, and found to his utter surprise that the same effect (momentary
electric current) that Galvani had found, could be obtained with just
metals, without any recently dead frogs to help out. This cast some doubt on
Galvani's theory of animal electricity, which made that eminent anatomist
quite unhappy. Unwittingly, Volta had discovered that it is possible to
generate electric currents by suitably connecting metals (wires).  By 1800
Volta had constructed a simple arrangement with bowls of saline solutions in
which a wire was placed. One end of the wire was of copper and the other of
zinc. This resulted in a flow of electric current. Volta had made the first
electric battery! Now it was a matter of improving the device and making it
more sophisticated, using copper and zinc plates, and so was created the
Voltaic cell (or pile as it used to be called).

The generation of steady electric currents is one of the greatest
breakthroughs in the history of science. It has had dramatic impacts on the
face of human civilization. It is appropriate that Volta's name has been
immortalized in every battery ever made.
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http://www.italian-american.com/volta.htm
http://www.corrosion-doctors.org/Biographies/VoltaBio.htm
http://www.top-biography.com/9148-Alessandro%20Volta/life.htm
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As a Bonus see:
 http://www.corrosion-doctors.org/Biographies/GalvaniBio.htm