PHYSICIST

Alessandro Volta

1745 - 1827

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Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta (UK: , US: ; Italian: [alesˈsandro dʒuˈzɛppe anˈtɔnjo anasˈtaːzjo ˈvɔlta]; 18 February 1745 – 5 March 1827) was an Italian chemist and physicist who was a pioneer of electricity and power, and is credited as the inventor of the electric battery and the discoverer of methane. He invented the voltaic pile in 1799, and reported the results of his experiments in a two-part letter to the president of the Royal Society, which was published in 1800. With this invention, Volta proved that electricity could be generated chemically and debunked the prevalent theory that electricity was generated solely by living beings. Volta's invention sparked a great amount of scientific excitement and led others to conduct similar experiments, which eventually led to the development of the field of electrochemistry. Read more on Wikipedia

His biography is available in different languages on Wikipedia. Alessandro Volta is the 11th most popular physicist (down from 8th in 2019), the 45th most popular biography from Italy (down from 31st in 2019) and the most popular Italian Physicist.

Alessandro Volta is most famous for his voltaic pile, which was the first battery.

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Among PHYSICISTS

Among physicists, Alessandro Volta ranks 11 out of 851Before him are Stephen Hawking, Wilhelm Röntgen, Michael Faraday, Niels Bohr, Hans Christian Ørsted, and Max Planck. After him are Albert A. Michelson, Pierre Curie, André-Marie Ampère, Evangelista Torricelli, Erwin Schrödinger, and Henri Becquerel.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1745, Alessandro Volta ranks 1After him are John Jay, Mikhail Kutuzov, Maria Luisa of Spain, Philippe Pinel, Archduke Charles Joseph of Austria, Johan Gottlieb Gahn, Johan Christian Fabricius, Carl Stamitz, Levin August von Bennigsen, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, and Johann Hieronymus Schröter. Among people deceased in 1827, Alessandro Volta ranks 2Before him is Ludwig van Beethoven. After him are Pierre-Simon Laplace, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, William Blake, Augustin-Jean Fresnel, Frederick Augustus I of Saxony, Maria Theresa of Austria, Wilhelm Hauff, Ugo Foscolo, Samuel Crompton, and Wilhelm Müller.

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In Italy

Among people born in Italy, Alessandro Volta ranks 45 out of 5,161Before him are Caligula (12), Pope Pius X (1835), Pope Clement I (40), Giovanni Boccaccio (1313), Pope Benedict XV (1854), and Giacomo Puccini (1858). After him are Brutus the Younger (-85), Ötzi (-3345), Pope Urban VII (1521), Giotto (1267), Pope Clement VII (1478), and Juan Carlos I of Spain (1938).

Among PHYSICISTS In Italy

Among physicists born in Italy, Alessandro Volta ranks 1After him are Evangelista Torricelli (1608), Enrico Fermi (1901), Luigi Galvani (1737), Emilio Segrè (1905), Laura Bassi (1711), Francesco Maria Grimaldi (1618), Ettore Majorana (1906), Carlo Rubbia (1934), Giovanni Battista Venturi (1746), Giovanni Battista Amici (1786), and Bruno Pontecorvo (1913).