WEBVTT - TechStuff Tidbits: A Profile On Alessandro Volta 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:11.960 --> 0:00:14.920 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:15.120 --> 0:00:19.000 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer at I Heart Radio 0:00:19.200 --> 0:00:21.760 and How the Tech Are Young. I'm starting a new 0:00:21.840 --> 0:00:25.840 kind of tech stuff episode today, sort of within the 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:30.240 Tech Stuff Tidbits overall umbrella, and I'm doing a quick 0:00:30.280 --> 0:00:35.159 profile on someone who made significant contributions to tech and 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:37.840 science in general. And I thought I would start off 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:45.600 with Conte Alessandro Giusippe Antonio Anastasio Volta, or Alessandro Volta 0:00:45.760 --> 0:00:51.320 for short. He was an incredibly important physicist and technologist 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:55.480 in a time when science was really just starting to 0:00:55.560 --> 0:01:01.000 take shape. He was born in seventeen, which puts his 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:07.440 uh maturation within the Age of Enlightenment. So this was 0:01:07.520 --> 0:01:11.320 a period that followed the Renaissance, and it saw society 0:01:11.400 --> 0:01:15.280 start to turn away from long traditions and embrace more 0:01:15.400 --> 0:01:19.480 experimentation and reason. Now I don't mean to say it 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:23.200 was all rationality and egalitarianism, of course, because there was 0:01:23.240 --> 0:01:26.280 a a lot of horrible stuff that happened in the 0:01:26.319 --> 0:01:30.399 seventeen and eighteen and into the early nineteenth centuries. But 0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:34.199 this would be when the modern world would start to 0:01:34.240 --> 0:01:38.479 take shape, and we moved away from the the world 0:01:38.520 --> 0:01:41.640 of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and into the 0:01:41.760 --> 0:01:45.480 modern era. Volta was born in seventeen forty five, as 0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:49.840 I mentioned, and his parents were noble, but not not 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:56.200 terribly wealthy, but aristocrats certainly. There was a Filippo Volta, 0:01:56.360 --> 0:02:00.320 his father who died when Alessandro was a teenager, and 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:06.520 then his mother, Donna Maria Madelena Volta. They had four children, 0:02:06.560 --> 0:02:11.680 including Alessandro Volta, and his parents his family in general, 0:02:11.800 --> 0:02:16.120 had some high hopes for Alessandro once he grew up 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:18.760 a little bit. They they kind of wanted him to 0:02:18.800 --> 0:02:22.520 become a lawyer. Now. As a child, Alessandro was sent 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:27.120 to live in the household of Ludovico Monty, and Monty 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:31.960 was a barometer maker, so he made tools that could 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:38.480 measure atmospheric pressure. Now. According to biographies, Volta's family worried 0:02:38.800 --> 0:02:43.840 that Alessandro might have some problems because he didn't start 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:47.640 speaking the around the same time that most children do. 0:02:48.120 --> 0:02:52.720 He was non verbal, uh fairly late into his childhood. 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:56.680 In fact, according to one biography I read, he only 0:02:56.760 --> 0:03:00.480 became you know, talkative when he hit the of seven 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:03.600 or so, though it's entirely possible he just didn't have 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:07.280 much to say. Around the same time that he started talking, 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:11.760 he also developed a keen interest in natural sciences, really 0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:17.000 just a insatiable curiosity about the world and how it worked. 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:22.240 So he was really eager to observe and to experiment. 0:03:22.880 --> 0:03:26.040 He attended private school and at age thirteen he was 0:03:26.080 --> 0:03:30.240 then enrolled in the School of the Jesuit Fathers in Como, Italy. 0:03:30.880 --> 0:03:35.240 His own father actually passed away while Volta was attending 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:39.840 this school, so then his uncle, also named Alessandro, would 0:03:39.840 --> 0:03:43.560 send him to the Royal Seminary in Como. Now at 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:46.960 this stage this was where his family was really hoping 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:51.920 he would study law. Meanwhile, his lead instructor at the 0:03:52.000 --> 0:03:56.600 Royal Seminary was really hoping to snag Alessandro for the priesthood. 0:03:57.240 --> 0:04:00.600 But at this point Volta was determined to become a scientist, 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:05.440 and he dove into studies revolving around chemistry and physics, 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:11.320 and was particularly fascinated with the study of electricity and 0:04:11.840 --> 0:04:16.440 electrostatic charges. Before he was twenty, he was designing electro 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:19.200 static experiments. He was helped by the fact that a 0:04:19.279 --> 0:04:23.120 childhood friend of his had constructed a laboratory and gave 0:04:23.160 --> 0:04:27.320 Alessandro access to it. So Volta must have had a 0:04:27.360 --> 0:04:31.120 pretty high opinion of himself around this time, because at 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:35.359 the ripe old age of twenty four he wrote his 0:04:35.400 --> 0:04:39.040 first memoir, like come on, you don't have enough memories 0:04:39.040 --> 0:04:43.120 to fill a memoir when you're twenty four. Anyway, Volta 0:04:43.240 --> 0:04:46.680 was in contact with other scientists of the era. He 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:49.280 was always eager to share what he had learned and 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:52.560 find out what other people had learned, so it was 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:56.359 really collaborative environment in the scientific field of the time. 0:04:56.720 --> 0:05:01.039 In seventeen seventy four he became professor sort of physics 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:04.479 at the Royal School of Como, and the following year, 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:08.400 in seventy five, he took a little invention created by 0:05:08.520 --> 0:05:13.400 Johann carl Wick or vic a decade earlier, and it 0:05:13.480 --> 0:05:16.400 was called the electro for us and Volta made some 0:05:16.480 --> 0:05:20.320 improvements to this basic invention, and as the name of 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:24.720 the device implies, it has something to do with electricity, 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:30.840 specifically electrostatic charge. Okay, let's talk about electrostatic charge and 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:33.839 what this device actually did, because we have to remember 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:37.719 that in the early days of experimentation with electricity, one 0:05:37.760 --> 0:05:40.640 of the few ways that you could actually generate any 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:45.039 kind of electrical output at all was through electrostatic charges. 0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:48.800 So the way that this device worked went like this. 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:53.080 You would start off with a plate made out of 0:05:53.120 --> 0:05:57.080 some sort of material like wax or pitch or resin, 0:05:57.720 --> 0:06:00.920 and this would serve as a dielectric late. So a 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:05.919 dielectric medium is an electrical insulator, so it doesn't allow 0:06:05.920 --> 0:06:08.680 electricity to flow through it. It doesn't have enough free 0:06:08.680 --> 0:06:13.920 electrons to allow for that. However, with a dielectric medium, 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:19.560 if you expose that kind of material to an electric field, 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:24.440 the field will cause the medium to become polarized. That is, 0:06:24.920 --> 0:06:28.400 one side of the material will have one type of 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:30.920 electric charge to it, and the opposite side of that 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:34.719 material will have the opposite electric charge to it. You 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:38.080 can think of it as the positive charge migrates to 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:40.919 one side the negative charge migrates to the other side. 0:06:40.920 --> 0:06:45.480 But collectively, if you look at the piece as a whole, 0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:50.520 it as an electrically neutral charge. It's just that the 0:06:50.600 --> 0:06:54.520 individual charges have migrated to the edges as opposed to 0:06:54.520 --> 0:06:57.400 just being kind of all mixed in together. So with 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:00.320 an electro for us. You take this die electric plate 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:03.520 of resin or wax or whatever, and then you rub 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:07.279 it with cloth or fur, and that's what starts to 0:07:07.360 --> 0:07:12.440 cause this polarization within the plate itself. Then on top 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:16.680 of this die electric plate you put a metal plate, 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:20.640 so it's like you're putting a metal disk on top 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:25.960 of a larger cake of this wax material or whatever 0:07:26.000 --> 0:07:29.080 that you've already rubbed down with cloth or fur. Attached 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:31.400 to the top side of the metal plate is a 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:36.200 handle that's insulated so you don't accidentally discharge the electrophorest prematurely. 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:40.840 And when you put the metal plate on this dielectric base, 0:07:41.560 --> 0:07:46.000 you also polarize the metal plate, which is unusual, like 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:48.760 typically you would have the charge move to the metal plate, 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:53.360 but because at a microscopic level, the plate is not 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:59.840 making enough contact with the dielectric plate underneath. Instead you 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:04.720 have this polarization. So again, the metal plate has charges 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:09.440 separate to either side of the metal plate. So let's 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:13.640 say that the uh the the top side of the 0:08:13.840 --> 0:08:20.320 dielectric plate is of a negative charge, Well, that would 0:08:20.360 --> 0:08:24.440 mean that the positive charge within the metal plate would 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:27.440 migrate down to it. Because opposites attract and it would 0:08:27.520 --> 0:08:30.600 mean that the negative charge of the electric of the 0:08:30.800 --> 0:08:34.080 metal plate rather would migrate to the top side, the 0:08:34.120 --> 0:08:38.160 side where the handle is. And so you've got this 0:08:38.480 --> 0:08:42.800 plate now that has the charges that are polarized, but 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:47.040 the plate itself still as a system, has a net 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:52.280 neutral charge. Then you ground the plate, you allow the 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:56.920 charge that has accumulated on the top of the plate 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:00.959 to discharge. You probably do this just by touching it. 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:04.040 You become the ground like you might hold the handle 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:07.240 in one hand and touch the surface of the plate 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:10.280 and the other and this allows the charge that has 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:14.000 accumulated on the top of the plate to discharge. However, 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:17.120 now what this means is that the metal plate actually 0:09:17.120 --> 0:09:19.600 does have a net charge, and that positive charge in 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:23.280 this case because you allowed that negative charge the head 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:27.640 accumulated on the top surface to go away, but the 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:30.280 net positive charge that's on the other surface is still there. 0:09:30.280 --> 0:09:33.120 So if you lift it with that insulated handle, so 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:36.000 now the charge is nowhere to go. What you have 0:09:36.880 --> 0:09:39.280 is a metal plate that has a net positive charge 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:41.840 on it, which you can then use for your various 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:45.280 electro static experiments. So really this was a way of 0:09:45.440 --> 0:09:49.920 holding an electro static charge so that you could do 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:52.800 something else with it, and it was a very important 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:56.840 tool for those early experiments. Pretty cool, and it makes 0:09:56.840 --> 0:10:00.800 sense that Volta did this right because he was interested 0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:05.280 in electrostatic experiments, and so he had an incentive to 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:08.920 make the instruments he relied upon easier to use and 0:10:09.000 --> 0:10:13.000 more reliable. All that being said, I am sure there 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:16.960 are documents out there that explain exactly what improvements Volta 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:21.560 introduced to this basic device, but I didn't find them 0:10:21.600 --> 0:10:24.120 when I was looking in my research. But knowing that 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:27.480 Volta had this keen interest in electricity and electrostatic charges, 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:31.240 makes sense that he would try to improve those devices. 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:34.080 I just don't know what it was he did that 0:10:34.200 --> 0:10:37.079 made it better. I do know that it had already existed. 0:10:37.120 --> 0:10:41.200 So while some people have credited Volta with creating the 0:10:41.280 --> 0:10:43.960 electrode for us, the truth of the matter is is 0:10:44.000 --> 0:10:48.839 that device pre existed Volta's work in the field. Okay, 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:51.080 I've got a lot more to say about Volta before 0:10:51.120 --> 0:11:04.640 we get to any of that. Let's take a quick break. Okay, So, 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:10.240 around the time that Volta was starting to experiment with 0:11:11.000 --> 0:11:15.240 electro static charges and to improve the electro forests, he 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:19.960 was also interested in bubbles. No tiny bubbles in the wine. 0:11:20.520 --> 0:11:24.280 No wait, I'm sorry that was someone else. No, he 0:11:24.360 --> 0:11:27.600 was interested in bubbles that were rising to the surface 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:31.720 of Lake Maggiore in uh specifically in a marsh area 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:36.680 around the lake called Iselina Patta Gora. And the lake 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:41.040 is huge. It's partly in Switzerland, it's mostly in Italy. 0:11:41.120 --> 0:11:43.559 It's on the south side of the Alps mountain range. 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:48.160 And Volta was visiting a friend and while wandering around 0:11:48.160 --> 0:11:51.360 the marsh saw these bubbles popping up, and he wondered 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:54.800 what was causing it. So he got some bottles and 0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:57.200 he was able to capture some of the escaping gas, 0:11:57.280 --> 0:12:01.200 and in experiments he learned that the gas was flammable 0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:04.520 or inflammable, because that means the same thing, and it 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:07.920 shows that English is a dumb language. The gas had 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:11.120 no color, it had no odor, but it could catch 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:14.400 fire and it turned out to be methane. So Volta 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:19.400 became the first scientist to isolate methane. And Volta also 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:23.280 invented a device to demonstrate how gas can be flammable. 0:12:23.559 --> 0:12:27.920 And this was a really interesting thing that I bet 0:12:28.080 --> 0:12:31.720 was really cool to see demonstrated and also more than 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:34.960 a little scary. So what he did was he created 0:12:35.200 --> 0:12:38.280 a metal container, so it has a hole on the 0:12:38.320 --> 0:12:41.040 top of it which can be corked, and it has 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:45.199 a hole on the side of it which is insulated 0:12:45.280 --> 0:12:49.480 by a ring of glass. So the metal around the 0:12:49.559 --> 0:12:52.400 little hole on the side is covered in glass to 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:55.920 keep it insulated. What you would do is you would 0:12:55.920 --> 0:12:59.800 insert a brass rod into the side hole so that 0:12:59.840 --> 0:13:02.520 the end of the brass rod is close to, but 0:13:02.679 --> 0:13:07.760 not touching, the interior wall of this metal canister. Through 0:13:07.800 --> 0:13:11.000 the top hole, you would introduce oxygen as well as 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:16.760 whatever gas you plan to test, like methane, and you 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:20.360 would then cork up the container so now the gas 0:13:20.400 --> 0:13:23.040 can't escape. The brass rod is in that hole in 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:26.320 the side. And then what you do is you would 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:30.360 create an electrostatic generator to create an electrostatic charge. You 0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:36.120 would bring the entire metal canister, rod and all over 0:13:36.280 --> 0:13:39.480 to the electrostatic generator and you would bring the rod 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:43.760 into contact with the generator. So the generator then discharges 0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:48.480 its electrostatic charge into the brass rod. Because the end 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:50.640 of the other end of the brass rod is close 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:55.320 to the interior metal wall but not quite touching it. 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:59.320 It would allow a spark to generate between the end 0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:02.400 of the brass odd and the interior of this metal container. 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:06.920 That spark would ignite this mixture of gas inside the 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:10.559 container that would create an explosion that would be strong 0:14:10.679 --> 0:14:13.520 enough to force the cork on the top of the container. 0:14:13.840 --> 0:14:18.080 So Volta had created an exploding gas powered cork gun. 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:22.800 The popular name for this device is Volta's pistol, and 0:14:22.880 --> 0:14:25.560 you could argue that this early experiment kind of laid 0:14:25.560 --> 0:14:30.040 the groundwork for the internal combustion engine. Later on, in 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:34.240 seventeen seventy eight, the University of pavia named Volta the 0:14:34.360 --> 0:14:38.880 Chair of Experimental Physics. But by seventeen eighty one he 0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:41.840 must have had itchy feet, because he started to travel 0:14:41.880 --> 0:14:46.160 across Europe, learning and teaching and making friends along the way. 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:48.840 The University of Pavio wasn't done with him either. It 0:14:48.880 --> 0:14:52.360 elected him dean for seventeen eighty five to seventeen eighty six, 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:56.040 and he would teach there off and on until eighteen nineteen. 0:14:56.640 --> 0:15:00.360 One of the friends that Volta made in his many 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:04.480 travels and discussions in the scientific field was another scientist 0:15:04.560 --> 0:15:08.680 by the name of Luigi Galvani, and it was Galvani 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:14.320 who discovered, while experimenting with muscle tissue that if he 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:21.080 put two metal pieces in contact with a skinned frog's leg, 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:25.560 it would induce an electric current and the leg would twitch, 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:30.720 something that Volta would call the galvanic response. This discovery 0:15:30.760 --> 0:15:36.440 actually led to a pretty heated professional disagreement between Galvanni 0:15:36.480 --> 0:15:40.800 and his buddy Volta, because Galvanni thought that the electricity 0:15:40.840 --> 0:15:45.640 that was responsible for this movement was within the muscle itself, 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:49.480 that that was the source of the electricity. He called 0:15:49.520 --> 0:15:54.920 it animal electricity. Volta disagreed. He thought the muscle had 0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:57.640 really just acted as an electrical conductor between the two 0:15:57.840 --> 0:16:02.000 metal points of contact, and he called it metallic electricity, 0:16:02.120 --> 0:16:07.200 especially when Volta was thinking about using different types of metal, 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:10.360 not two of the same kind, but two different types 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:14.080 of metal that you could create electric current between the two. Now, 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:17.960 this disagreement led Volta to start experimenting with different metals 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:21.880 as he tried to determine if by combining them you 0:16:21.880 --> 0:16:25.800 could create an electrical current. By bringing them into contact 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:29.200 with one another, you could induce current to flow between them, 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:32.800 and by jove, he did it. Through all of this, 0:16:33.320 --> 0:16:38.200 there was this really dramatic feud between the proponents of 0:16:38.240 --> 0:16:44.360 the animal electricity hypothesis and the metallic electricity advocates as well. 0:16:44.760 --> 0:16:49.040 It got ugly like there were some pretty heated disagreements 0:16:49.040 --> 0:16:52.840 in the scientific community around this time about which of 0:16:52.880 --> 0:16:57.920 the two hypotheses was correct. Volta ultimately was able to 0:16:57.960 --> 0:17:01.000 show that there was no need for animal tissue in 0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:04.000 order to create a current between two different pieces of metal. 0:17:04.359 --> 0:17:07.560 He used some cloth or some cardboard that have been 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:10.520 soaked in brine and showed that you can still get 0:17:10.560 --> 0:17:12.800 current to pass through, saying, well, you know, there's nothing 0:17:12.920 --> 0:17:17.560 here that was part of an animal, so your hypothesis 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:21.639 that electricity is part and parcel with the concept of 0:17:21.680 --> 0:17:25.080 living organisms is not necessarily correct. Now, of course we 0:17:25.160 --> 0:17:29.480 know that stuff like like muscular movements are made through 0:17:30.240 --> 0:17:35.160 electrochemical signals in our brains, but that wasn't exactly what 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:39.040 Galvanni was saying at the time. So you could argue 0:17:39.080 --> 0:17:41.879 that both of them were right to different degrees. But 0:17:42.119 --> 0:17:46.280 what Volta demonstrated was that you didn't need the organic tissue, 0:17:47.160 --> 0:17:50.879 uh right there, in order to conduct electricity. You just 0:17:50.960 --> 0:17:57.320 needed something that could serve as a conduit. Now we'll 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:01.720 take a short break from his science experimentation to deal 0:18:01.800 --> 0:18:07.439 with matters of the heart. In seventeen, Alessandro Volta married 0:18:07.680 --> 0:18:12.760 Maria Teresa Alonza Peregrini, and the couple would ultimately have 0:18:12.960 --> 0:18:16.520 three children together. Now I wish I could tell you 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:20.960 a lot more about Maria, but sadly the historical records 0:18:21.000 --> 0:18:25.159 are scarce. I don't even have a birthday, nor do 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:28.439 I have the date when she died. The only records 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:31.040 I could find listened to her as wife to Alessandro 0:18:31.280 --> 0:18:36.800 and mother to Zannino, Flaminio and Luigi. Or refrain from 0:18:36.840 --> 0:18:41.560 making further commentary on the matter. Volta continued his experiments 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:46.960 with metallic electricity, and in sevent announced that if you 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:50.560 were to take a disc of a metal such as silver, 0:18:51.400 --> 0:18:53.520 and then you cover that disc with a material like 0:18:53.680 --> 0:18:57.359 cloth soaked in brine, and then you put on top 0:18:57.400 --> 0:19:00.480 of that cloth soaked in brian another mata like disc, 0:19:00.520 --> 0:19:02.919 but at this time of a different metal like zinc, 0:19:03.840 --> 0:19:07.560 that collectively this would generate an electric current, and if 0:19:07.560 --> 0:19:10.560 you attached a wire to it, current would flow from 0:19:10.680 --> 0:19:14.280 one end of this little stack to the other. In 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:18.120 eight hundred he would build a full stack of discs 0:19:18.160 --> 0:19:23.160 alternating between copper and pewter, or maybe silver and zinc. 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:28.000 The records aren't clear, and he separated the different metallic 0:19:28.040 --> 0:19:31.440 discs with cloth or cardboard that had been soaked in brine. 0:19:32.000 --> 0:19:35.040 And he showed that if you increase the number of disks, 0:19:35.119 --> 0:19:39.000 if you built the stack taller, you would also increase 0:19:39.080 --> 0:19:43.280 the electromotive force of the current. And he was the 0:19:43.320 --> 0:19:48.320 first to describe this as electromotive sort of the power 0:19:48.600 --> 0:19:52.280 behind the current, not how much current there was, but 0:19:52.359 --> 0:19:56.320 how much there was to the current, and building a 0:19:56.359 --> 0:20:02.200 taller stack made more. Ultimately, we would describe this invention 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:05.720 as the voltaic pile. And if you connected a wire 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:07.520 from to the top of the pile to the bottom 0:20:07.520 --> 0:20:10.000 of the pile, you would complete the circuit and thus 0:20:10.040 --> 0:20:12.880 you would get current to flow. And yeah, the more 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:17.000 discs you add, the more strength this current would have 0:20:17.960 --> 0:20:21.400 and this would become the basis of the electric battery, 0:20:21.680 --> 0:20:26.359 and that would change the world. All right, Well, finish 0:20:26.480 --> 0:20:29.160 up on our discussion about volta in just a moment, 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:40.840 but first let's take another quick break. All right. Before 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:44.080 the break, I mentioned that the invention of the battery 0:20:44.080 --> 0:20:46.800 would change the world, and it really did, and it 0:20:46.840 --> 0:20:51.200 continues to do so. But at the time, the invention 0:20:51.240 --> 0:20:55.720 of the battery became an enormous boon to science because 0:20:55.800 --> 0:20:59.920 scientists no longer had to rely upon either electrostatic generator 0:21:00.480 --> 0:21:03.760 or a laden jar. And I'll describe late in jars 0:21:03.760 --> 0:21:06.720 in a different episode. It gets a little too involved 0:21:06.720 --> 0:21:09.080 for us to jump in here, but it's kind of 0:21:09.080 --> 0:21:11.800 like a capacitor. It releases all of its electricity in 0:21:11.840 --> 0:21:16.040 one go. The voltaic pile became useful because you could 0:21:16.119 --> 0:21:20.919 continuously generate current until it had expired and corroded to 0:21:20.920 --> 0:21:23.720 the point where it no longer would allow current to flow. 0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:28.800 So that meant that scientists had a way to generate 0:21:28.920 --> 0:21:32.959 electricity and conduct various experiments with it. And by building 0:21:33.000 --> 0:21:37.000 larger and larger piles, they could generate electricity with more 0:21:38.160 --> 0:21:42.240 behind it. And this meant that folks like Anthony Carlyle 0:21:42.400 --> 0:21:47.879 and William Nicholson could generate enough powerful electricity to discover 0:21:48.200 --> 0:21:52.240 electrolysis of water. This is when you use an electric 0:21:52.320 --> 0:21:56.840 charge of sufficient voltage. Kind of spoiling the end of this, 0:21:56.960 --> 0:22:00.119 but we all know where volt comes from, right anyway, 0:22:00.560 --> 0:22:03.120 It's when you use an electric charge of sufficient voltage 0:22:03.160 --> 0:22:07.240 to break the molecular bonds of water, which means that 0:22:07.400 --> 0:22:11.000 when you have when you've introduced this electric current to water, 0:22:11.800 --> 0:22:15.240 it causes the water to become hydrogen and oxygen and 0:22:15.320 --> 0:22:18.080 converts into two gases. So this is one way where 0:22:18.119 --> 0:22:21.080 you can harvest hydrogen right. One of the problems we 0:22:21.080 --> 0:22:24.320 have with hydrogen is that although it is the most 0:22:24.960 --> 0:22:29.800 common element in the universe, it also bonds with other 0:22:29.920 --> 0:22:33.680 stuff and it's really hard to find hydrogen just by itself. 0:22:34.119 --> 0:22:37.000 Even though hydrogen is incredibly useful, it means that we 0:22:37.080 --> 0:22:40.400 have to find ways to break it out of other 0:22:40.520 --> 0:22:45.080 molecular bonds, like with oxygen. So electrolysis is one way 0:22:45.080 --> 0:22:48.480 to do that. You pass this this charge through water 0:22:49.040 --> 0:22:52.200 and it causes those molecular bonds to break down and 0:22:52.240 --> 0:22:56.120 you can harvest hydrogen from it that way. So that 0:22:56.240 --> 0:23:00.720 was a very important early use of voltaic piles back 0:23:00.800 --> 0:23:06.280 in the early days of electricity. So this invention also 0:23:06.400 --> 0:23:09.680 meant that further discoveries would pour in from all parts 0:23:09.760 --> 0:23:13.320 of the world, and it was really important to physics 0:23:13.359 --> 0:23:17.240 and to chemistry. We had multiple elements discovered in this 0:23:17.280 --> 0:23:22.920 period because scientists had access to experiments that could rely 0:23:23.119 --> 0:23:27.800 upon a reliable source of electricity. So this was a 0:23:27.920 --> 0:23:32.600 huge boost in scientific knowledge. It's hard to overstate how 0:23:32.600 --> 0:23:37.280 important it was. Volta would end up becoming highly decorated 0:23:37.440 --> 0:23:42.280 for his contributions. He was united a couple of times, 0:23:42.440 --> 0:23:46.760 especially in France. He became a count in Italy, and 0:23:47.000 --> 0:23:51.440 Napoleon Bonaparte was particularly impressed by Volta's work. He ended 0:23:51.520 --> 0:23:56.560 up creating an honorary award that would reward significant achievements 0:23:56.600 --> 0:24:00.960 in the field of science, specifically electrical science. He said 0:24:01.000 --> 0:24:04.280 that if someone made a contribution on the level of 0:24:04.320 --> 0:24:08.080 Benjamin Franklin or Alessandra Volta, they would be deserving of 0:24:08.160 --> 0:24:11.920 such an award. So Volta achieved great fame and success. 0:24:11.960 --> 0:24:14.800 He returned to the University of Pavia, and like I said, 0:24:14.840 --> 0:24:18.800 he would teach there until eighteen nineteen. Tragically, his son 0:24:18.880 --> 0:24:22.359 Flaminio died when he was just eighteen years old, and 0:24:22.480 --> 0:24:27.000 that devastated Alessandra Volta, and so he retired from teaching 0:24:27.000 --> 0:24:30.320 in eighteen nineteen and from public life entirely. In eighteen twenty. 0:24:30.520 --> 0:24:33.600 He moved back to Como, where he grew up, and 0:24:33.640 --> 0:24:36.399 he lived out his final years there. He passed away 0:24:36.440 --> 0:24:40.640 when he was eighty two years old, and then decades later, 0:24:40.720 --> 0:24:44.959 in eighteen eighty one, the scientific community decided that they 0:24:45.000 --> 0:24:50.080 would name a unit of electromotive force after this great scientist. 0:24:50.440 --> 0:24:53.479 That's why we call them volts. So voltage is a 0:24:53.480 --> 0:24:57.119 measure of electromotive force. And I often say, and a 0:24:57.160 --> 0:24:59.040 lot of people do. It's not just me. In fact, 0:24:59.080 --> 0:25:01.960 I am not by far. I'm not the first person 0:25:02.000 --> 0:25:04.359 to say this, but I think of voltage kind of 0:25:04.400 --> 0:25:07.879 like water pressure in a plumbing system. Like the amount 0:25:07.920 --> 0:25:11.080 of water in the system that's the current, but the 0:25:11.080 --> 0:25:14.760 amount of pressure behind it, that's the voltage. If we 0:25:14.760 --> 0:25:19.879 were to create an analogy, so Alessandro Volta incredibly important, 0:25:20.520 --> 0:25:23.919 really sticking it to his buddy Luigi Gavani, and I 0:25:23.960 --> 0:25:25.920 thought it would be good to do a quick profile, 0:25:26.160 --> 0:25:28.359 and I'll probably do more of these. There will be 0:25:28.400 --> 0:25:32.000 other people who will deserve much longer episodes, not that 0:25:32.160 --> 0:25:36.080 Volta doesn't, but you know, I didn't want to dive 0:25:36.119 --> 0:25:41.080 into things that would become irrelevant due to the fact 0:25:41.080 --> 0:25:45.160 that we have gone so far from his initial contributions. 0:25:45.200 --> 0:25:48.560 I just wanted to talk about the really intrinsic ones 0:25:48.600 --> 0:25:52.560 that are important in tech today, but I'll probably do 0:25:52.600 --> 0:25:54.880 more of these in the future. That's the plan. Maybe 0:25:54.880 --> 0:25:57.199 I'll do one of Ben Franklin, although obviously I'll have 0:25:57.240 --> 0:26:02.040 to focus primarily on his contributions to tech as opposed 0:26:02.080 --> 0:26:05.399 to everything else he's known for, because that dude was 0:26:05.600 --> 0:26:08.160 busy in more ways than one, as it turns out. 0:26:08.800 --> 0:26:11.639 And um, yeah, if you have people that you would 0:26:11.640 --> 0:26:13.399 like to suggest for me to do a profile on 0:26:13.480 --> 0:26:16.040 in the future, let me know. Like I said, if 0:26:16.080 --> 0:26:18.680 if it's someone who's done tons and tons and tons 0:26:18.680 --> 0:26:21.320 of stuff and continues to do stuff, because obviously there 0:26:21.320 --> 0:26:24.320 are a lot of very influential people alive working in 0:26:24.359 --> 0:26:26.879 tech right now, then I may be doing you know, 0:26:26.960 --> 0:26:29.919 much longer episodes or maybe even multi partners depending on 0:26:29.960 --> 0:26:32.760 the person. But I would love to hear your suggestions. 0:26:33.240 --> 0:26:35.280 You can reach out on Twitter. The handle for the 0:26:35.280 --> 0:26:38.160 show is tech Stuff hs W, or you can drop 0:26:38.200 --> 0:26:40.640 me a line by downloading the I Heart Radio app. 0:26:40.680 --> 0:26:42.560 It is free to download and to use. You can 0:26:42.640 --> 0:26:44.480 navigate over to tech Stuff by putting it in a 0:26:44.480 --> 0:26:47.280 little search bar. It'll pop right up. You'll see that 0:26:47.600 --> 0:26:49.960