Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta was an Italian physicist and chemist 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 1800 in a two-part letter to the president of the Royal Society. 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.
Alessandro Volta
Volta battery at the Tempio Voltiano museum, Como
Volta explains the principle of the "electric column" to Napoleon in 1801.
Leopoldo Pollack, Aula Volta, 1787, Old Campus of the University of Pavia
An electric battery is a source of electric power consisting of one or more electrochemical cells with external connections for powering electrical devices. When a battery is supplying power, its positive terminal is the cathode and its negative terminal is the anode. The terminal marked negative is the source of electrons that will flow through an external electric circuit to the positive terminal. When a battery is connected to an external electric load, a redox reaction converts high-energy reactants to lower-energy products, and the free-energy difference is delivered to the external circuit as electrical energy. Historically the term "battery" specifically referred to a device composed of multiple cells; however, the usage has evolved to include devices composed of a single cell.
Various cells and batteries (top left to bottom right): two AA, one D, one handheld ham radio battery, two 9-volt (PP3), two AAA, one C, one camcorder battery, one cordless phone battery
A voltaic pile, the first battery
Italian physicist Alessandro Volta demonstrating his pile to French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte
From top to bottom: a large 4.5-volt 3R12 battery, a D Cell, a C cell, an AA cell, an AAA cell, an AAAA cell, an A23 battery, a 9-volt PP3 battery, and a pair of button cells (CR2032 and LR44)
