29 Alessandro Volta Facts: Inventions, Education, Family, And More

The 21st century is a modern world.

Our present world runs on technology and modern equipment. We live in a world where a snap of a finger can start a super complex machine and where we are flying into the darkness of space in heavy fire-emitting vessels.

This development in technology was not sudden. It took several centuries to understand the world around us and all it had to offer. Humans started improving their lives some two million years ago by discovering fire and inventing stone tools, and our species has been learning and developing ever since.

After many centuries of evolution, many curious minds, many experiments, many failures, many redos, many tests, and many successes, the world has become what it is today. The many curious-minded, out-of-the-box thinkers grew into scientists that studied our world and the millions of its aspects.

The fact that our modern world is run by electricity is all thanks to the scientists who invented and taught it to us.

One of the pioneering geniuses of Electrical Science is the Italian physicist Alessandro Volta. In the paragraphs below, we will learn Alessandro Volta facts that will teach us about his world-altering inventions.

Facts About Alessandro Volta

Alessandro Volta was born on 18th February 1745 in Como, a town in the northern part of Italy. Here are some other facts about Alessandro Volta:

• The name given to the Italian inventor at birth was Alessandro Guiseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta.
• Alessandro Volta had a tremendous interest in the studies of physics and chemistry.
• He studied these sciences from his teenage years. In 1774 Volta became a physics professor at the Royal School of Como after conducting various studies and writing several papers in electrical sciences.
• In the following years, Volta made a few remarkable inventions and discoveries and went on a scientific journey across Europe, exchanging knowledge with other leading scientists.
• In 1778, Volta was appointed as the chair of the Experimental Physics department at the University of Pavia, Italy. Chairing the Department of Experimental Physics is something Volta did for over the next 40 years, until his retirement.

Inventions By Alessandro Volta

Alessandro Volta changed the world with his inventions in the field of electrical and electrochemistry. His inventions became the stepping stones for all modern-day technologies powered by electricity and electrochemistry.

• From the age of 18, Volta showed immense interest in the field of electrical science.
• At the age of 30, in 1775, Alessandro Volta invented a device that produced static electricity and called it electrophorus.
• Unfortunately, unknown to Volta, the same device was invented in 1762 by another scientist. Volta did not lose hope and kept experimenting in the same field.
• One year later, Volta started studying the chemistry of gases. After two years, in 1778, Volta became the first scientist to isolate methane gas.
• Alessandro also conducted follow-up experiments like the ignition of methane gas inside a closed vessel by an electric spark. Volta also studied electrical capacitance, during which he discovered that electric potential and electric charge are directly proportional.
• This derivation is called Volta's Law of Capacitance. Alessandro Volta then went on to conduct electrical experiments based on Luigi Galvani's discovery of animal electricity.
• Volta did not share Galvani's understandings of his experiment and argued with Galvani against his discovery.
• From his understandings of Galvani's experiment, Volta made the groundbreaking invention of the Voltaic Pile, the first-ever electrical battery. Volta's battery became the first device to produce a steady electric current.
• Galvani discovered that a dead frog contained animal electricity when two varied metals were connected to each of its legs and to one another. Through this experiment and many of his own, Volta understood that the dead frog did not contribute to the electric current but merely acted as a conductor of electricity or either a detector of electricity.
• He recreated the setting by connecting different metals through brine-soaked cardboard or paper, creating the voltaic pile or battery. He also experimented with the combinations of metals by measuring the electrical effect each pair generated. He found that zinc and silver suited the battery best.
• Volta wrote to the then President of the Royal Society, in 1800, from Genoa, Italy, where he invented his battery. Volta's invention soon caused a huge ripple of excitement among scientists who conducted further experiments based on Volta's study, thus forming the branch of electrochemistry.

Facts About Alessandro Volta's Family

Volta was one of the most famous scientists of his time. His company was sought after by many because of his tremendous professional success. But, the Italian man preferred a domestic life, in contrast to a public and busy one, especially in his later years.

• Alessandro Volta was born to Filippo Volta and Donna Maddalena, a religious couple living in the Como, Italy. His father came from a noble descent, but they lived a poor life.
• When he was just seven years old, his father passed away, leaving them in debt. After his father's death, his uncles took guardianship of Alessandro and his siblings.
• The family on Volta's father's side were all very religious people, and his mother's side of the family consisted of law professionals.
• Volta didn't want to pursue either as his career, as his interests solely relied on physics and chemistry. Some of his family members were unsupportive of his choices and wrongly accused him of lacking faith in his religion.
• In 1794, at the age of 49, Alessandro Volta married a 46-year-old noblewoman named Teresa Peregrini. They together raised Luigi, Flaminio, and Zanino, their three sons.
• After retiring from his experiments, scientific studies, and university administrations in 1819, he settled in a country house near his hometown Como and spent the days until his death (on Mar 5, 1827) by his family's side.

Alessandro Volta's Education

Interestingly, Alessandro had a slow growth as a toddler. His parents believed that as a child he may have developmental issues and thought he may not be very intelligent when he grew to an adult. Let's explore more Volta facts about his education:

• Due to his lack of speech by age four, his parents believed he may not speak.
• Volta went on to become one of the most important people in the history of science and technology.
• After the passing of his father, Volta was homeschooled until the age of 12 under his uncle's guardianship.
• At 12, Alessandro Volta went to a Jesuit boarding school in Italy. When the school started pressuring him to become a priest, he transferred to another school and studied there until the age of 18. There he met Giulio Cesar Gattoni, another science enthusiast, who provided him with books and guidance to study electricity.
• When his family wanted him to pursue law, Volta held his ground and studied the mysteries of physics and science instead. Alessandro learned Latin, German, English, and French, along with his native tongue of Italian. This vast knowledge of languages helped Volta in exchanging ideas and learning from scientists all over Europe.
• At 18, Volta was courageous and curious enough to write to two leading physicists, Antoine Nollet and Giambatista Beccaria, one a Frenchman from Paris, the other was an Italian Physicist in Turin. Beccaria encouraged young Volta to learn more by conducting experiments when he disagreed with some of his insights.
• Volta published his first dissertation titled 'On The Attractive Force Of The Electric Fire' and sent it to Beccaria in 1769. With guidance from these scientists and a lot of dedication, Alessandro immersed himself in the study of electricity and chemistry and never looked back.