Google Icon for Alessandro Volta's 270th Birthday

Today's Google custom icon commemorates Volta's 270th birthday, who essentially invented the first battery (aka Voltaic pile). Check it out. And try this link, too: http://www.theguardian.com/science/the-h-word/2015/feb/18/alessandro-volta-anniversary-electricity-history-science" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

What a pile...Voltaic pile! But don't think this device was rechargeable. I found it interesting that one of the first things they did with the battery was to electrolyze water into hydrogen and oxygen. The stuff fuel cell builders dream about.

Also kind of funny that Galvani observed this "animal electricity", then Volta found it was coming from the metal and not the animal, and then Oersted found out electric currents made magnetic fields, thus making it possible to build an instrument which they named...after Galvani! That one's called a galvanometer.

I wonder if there will be a Google doodle to commemorate the Baghdad battery?

AndyH said:

I wonder if there will be a Google doodle to commemorate the Baghdad battery?

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Little hard to attribute that to a particular individual, even assuming that it was widely accepted that that's what it was - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_Battery" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

GRA said:

AndyH said:

I wonder if there will be a Google doodle to commemorate the Baghdad battery?

Click to expand...

Little hard to attribute that to a particular individual, even assuming that it was widely accepted that that's what it was - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_Battery" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Yeah, familiar with the wiki piece. Also somewhat familiar with some of the edits in the page over the years. Wikis aren't always the most authoritative resources, unfortunately.

That it appeared to be used for electroplating, and that a number of Egyptian hieroglyphics show what appears to be a Baghdad battery wired to an incandescent light bulb, is a bit of a head-scratcher.