Story Of Electricity- (II)

SPARK (II) – The Conclusion

At the end of 18^th century, Bologna University, Italy became a witness of a professional rivalry between two Italian Academicians, Luigi Aloisio Galvani, and Alessandro Volta. Italy was then ruled by Rome which was very powerful yet conservative in approach. Galvani, a religious man with a firm belief in God wanted to use electricity in medical treatments. He performed his famous FROG EXPERIMENT, which made him believe that electricity is generated within humans and this is intrinsic to all humans and is a power given to living beings by God. However, Galvani beliefs were challenged by a rich, powerful and rational academician, Alessandro Volta. Volta was living in Pavia, a politically radical, liberal in thinking and part of the Austrian empire. He believed that there is no place of animal electricity in Rational Science. However, Galvani was firm in his approach and continued his work on animal electricity and published his finding in a book, he named ANIMALI ELECTRICITATE. He stated that electricity is generated within the frog and frog’s muscles act like Leiden jars which release electricity in bursts. His arguments on animal electricity were not accepted and were challenged hugely by Volta. Due to this unacceptability and denial of his research, Galvani died in poverty in 1768. 

Original Image Source: scihi.org   Le Opere di Alessandro Volta Via drupal.mpiwg-berlin

In 1790, Volta began working in University of Pavia and emphasized on electricity generated by different metals. He was greatly influenced by the work of Henry Cavendish, particularly on the Torpedo fish. Volta argued that electricity is an intrinsic property of metals like copper, silver etc. and Is not generated inside animals. In order to prove his research, he repeated a pattern of a copper metal plate placed over a soaked card in dilute acid and sandwiched by another copper plate of same size and thickness. This arrangement leads to the invention of THE PILE, later called as VOLTA’S PILE. A power and a constant source of electricity, the first form of a battery. All results of animal electricity and results of Galvani were mimicked by Volta’s Pile and thus Galvani’s theory was scrapped. His was after this invention that the name Electric Current was coined.

Original Image Source: sciencesource   wikimedia.org

Inspired by works of Volta in 1808, Humphry Davy built the world’s largest battery which filled an entire room underneath Royal Institution London. Over 800 Voltaic Piles were attached together and a bright spark was produced by using Carbon Electrodes. The Light so produced was called ArcLight. Thus giving world new possibilities of using Electricity for producing Light and using small piles as batteries for storing electricity.

Galvani was penniless in his later years and his research was the used and studied by his nephew Giovani Galvani, who used voltaic piles and conductors to connect to pieces of the dead body and allowed current through them. The result of this experiment made the science community in fear and bewildered. Due to the flow of current in a dead body connected with pieces of copper conductor, the dead body sat upright and its spine twisted and arched. This experiment made everyone in the demonstration room shout with fear as it seems that the dead body has come back to life leading to a thought that Electricity might have the power of Resurrection. This experiment inspired Mary Shelley to write the famous Gothic novel Frankenstein or Modern Prometheus

The 18^th century was truly a starting for Electricity. A spark from Hauksbee machine to the idea of Electric Current and Batteries evolved a new research field for most of the scientists. What happens after this basic discovery is even more captivating. How electricity was made a commercial commodity? and how humans got dependent on it?....... To be continued in the next part.