1796: ?Pila?

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1796 ?Pila?
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1797 Lelettrometro condensatore, leliminazione
dei rivelatori organici, coppie bimetalliche
Rilevazione sbilancio del fluido senza la rana
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200 hundred years ago the pile

• From a region, Lombardy, once again under
  Austrian rule, the 20th of March 1800 a letter,
  written in French, is sent by an Italian
  scientist to the (British) Royal Society for
  publication in theTransactions. The author is not
  unknown, being a member of the Society and the
  recipient five years earlier of its Copley medal,
  but the letter is rather strange both in form and
  content it claims nothing less than the
  discovery, today one would say the invention, of
  a perpetual electrical motion device, the pile
  but rather than a proper scientific paper it is a
  collation of parts written in a great hurry.

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• In this way the fifty-five year old Alessandro
  Volta, for twenty-two years professor of
  Experimental Physics, not of natural philosophy
  as reported in the Transactions, at Pavia
  University, communicated to the world the
  possibility of producing stable electrical
  currents, a result that was to change the way of
  life on this planet.

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Letters to Banks
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1799 Invention of the pile
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• Mi procuro qualche dozzina di piccole lastre
  rotonde o dischi di rame, di ottone, o meglio di
  argento, di un pollice di diametro, più o meno
  (ad esempio, delle monete) ed un numero eguale di
  lastre di stagno, o, il che è molto meglio, di
  zinco, e presso a poco della medesima forma e
  grandezza dico presso a poco perchè non è
  affatto richiesta una precisione, e, in generale,
  la grandezza, come la forma, dei pezzi metallici
  è arbitraria bisogna soltanto aver riguardo di
  poterli disporre comodamente gli uni sopra gli
  altri in forma di colonna.

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• Preparo inoltre un numero assai grande di dischi
  di cartone, di pelle, o di qualche altra materia
  spugnosa capace di assorbire e di ritenere molto
  dell'acqua o dell'umore di cui bisognerà, per il
  successo delle esperienze, che essi siano ben
  annacquati. Queste fette o dischi, che chiamerò
  dischi ammolliti, li faccio un po' più piccoli
  che i dischi o piastre metalliche, affinchè,
  interposti tra questi nel modo che dirò subito,
  essi non debordino.

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Uno sguardo più accurato alla pila

• lanalogia con la torpedine
• i corpi organici come rivelatori
• la legge di Ohm
• il contatto bimetallico
• Qual è il modulo base della pila? La coppia
  bimetallica o il metallo-conduttore umido-metallo?

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1799 Volta inventa la pila
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La pila un ritorno ai rivelatori organici

• Volta ribadisce la fattorizzazione ma ha dei
  problemi
• I Francesi ribadiscono lelettrostatica
  coulombiana
• Gli Inglesi sottolineano le reazioni chimiche
• Ancora oggi si dibatte

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Volta 1801-14 Lidentità dei due fluidi
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Accepting the battery

• France Coulombian electrostatics
• Institut not really in favour of Voltas ideas
• Britain Electrochemistry
• Germany Interactions and unity of forces

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Voltas experimental contributions

• Electrophorus, electrometer, electric pistol,
  eudiometer, condenser, battery

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Volta 1799 La pilaCoppia bimetallica e
conduttore umido
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Voltas conceptual contributions

• Tension, charge, capacity electromotive force,
  current, resistance
• Factorisation of intensive and extensive factors
  QCT

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Quantification and Qualification

• The quantification of the Baconian sciences did
  not follow only the non linear inverse square law
  of the Newtonian-Coulombian way. Linear
  quantification of qualities achieved through
  factorisation also played a relevant and lasting
  role
• For a fuller historical account the interplay
  between instruments and mathematics is not
  enough we also need to focus on theoretical
  models and regulative principles

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Voltas theoretical legacy a non standard but
productive trend

• Alternative conceptual frameworks
• Oersted, Sadi Carnot, Faraday, Mayer
• Factorisation
• Ohm, Rankine, Ostwald, Helm,
• Duhem, Sommerfeld
• Later on Theoretical Physics
• Helmholtz

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Voltas Theoretical Legacy

• Ohm explicity referred to Volta and his law is
  based on the product of an intensive (V) and
  extensive (1/R) quantity Ohms law IV/R
• Carnot utilizes an approach similar to Voltas
  one the reestablishment of the equilibrium of
  the fluid (fire) through the tendency of an
  intensity factor (temperature)

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Voltas Theoretical Legacy

• Voltas concept of (atmo) sphere of activity is
  echoed in Faradays electrotonic state, and the
  concept of vis attractiva in Faradays lines of
  force (flux tubes that attract and tend to
  enlarge). Lines of force, like vis attractiva,
  can also explain repulsion (attraction versus
  other bodies)
• Mayer in 1843 gives the first energy
  interpretation of the electrophorus

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Voltas Theoretical Legacy

• Helmholtzs in 1847 gives the first energy
  interpretation of the contact of metals and of
  batteries. His struggle to separate the concept
  of Spannkraft (potential energy) from Newtonian
  Kraft echoes Voltas struggle to introduce
  tension against force
• Rankines 1853 version of energy conservation
  (factorisation) is based on the product of an
  intensity factor by an extensive one

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Voltas Theoretical Legacy

• Factorisation was a main part of the energetics
  in the works of Ostwald, Helm and Duhem
• Sommerfeld still proposed this distinction in
  electromagnetism in the 1940s, in his advanced
  textbook.
• And so we can close the hermeneutical Voltaic
  circle!!!

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Voltas Primary Sources

• Archives
• Papers and Letters
• Instruments

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Voltas Sources Archives
Istituto Lombardo di Scienze e Lettere
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Voltas Sources Works
5 volumes 1949-55
2 volumes 1974-76
7 volumes 1918-29
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Voltas Sources Instruments
Museo per la Storia dellUniversità di Pavia
Tempio Voltiano-Como
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Voltas Sources Instruments
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Voltas Sources Instruments
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Voltas Sources Instruments
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Voltas Historiography

• A bit of history of historiography is necessary
• Massardi and Polvani
• Heilbron
• Pera e Bernardi
• Pancaldi e Fregonese

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The Received View

• Classical sciences (general physics, quadrivium)
  challenged by
• Baconian Sciences (particular, experimental
  physics)
• undergoing a process of quantification and
  mathematization along Newtonian-Coulombian lines
• Enlightenment and quantification
• Standard Model of particles and fluids and
  interactions

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Voltas Historiography Massardi and Polvani
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A triumphant march towards Coulombs approach
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Voltas Historiography Pera and Bernardi
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Voltas Historiography Pancaldi and Fregonese

• Giuliano Pancaldi
• 1990 Electricity and Life. Voltas Path to the
  Battery
• 1993 An Enlightened Physicist Alessandro Volta
  and Electricity. 1745-1827

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Voltas celebrations

• 1878 Pavia
• 1899 Como
• 1927 Como
• 1999 Pavia, Como

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History of Celebrations 1878 Pavia

• Laurea Honoris Causa Helmholtz Maxwell

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Voltas Celebrations 1927 Como
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Today

• The Cabinet and Multimedia
• Digitalising Collected Works and Manuscripts
• Volta and the Web
• The Nuova Voltiana

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The Cabinet and Multimedia
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Digitalising Voltas Sources
5 volumes 1949-55
2 volumes 1974-76
7 volumes 1918-29
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The Nuova Voltiana Restaging Voltas Natural
Philosophy

• There is a need for a better understanding of
  Voltas work in close connection with the path
  followed by the physical sciences from natural
  philosophy to the form and contents they assumed
  by the end of the eighteenth century.
• a more effective understanding of both his
  conceptual world and the extent to which it was
  embodied in the numerous instruments he invented.

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Nuova Voltiana Journal of Voltaic Studies

• First Issues papers presented at the WORKSHOP
  Alessandro Volta between Natural Philosophy,
  Chemistry and Physics
• December 1999
• Abbri Voltas chemical theories The first two
  phases
• Agazzi The impact of Alessandro Volta on German
  culture
• Bensaude A glimpse on pneumatic chemistry from
  Pavia

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Nuova Voltiana

• Beretta Volta and aerial medicine Salubrity and
  respirability of air at the end of the 18th
  century
• Bernardi The controversy on animal electricity
  in eighteenth-century Italy Galvani, Volta and
  other protagonists
• Brambilla Scientific and professional education
  in Lombardy, 1760-1803 Physics between medicine
  and engineering
• Brenni-Bellodi The arms of the physicist Volta
  and scientific instruments

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Nuova Voltiana

• Ciardi Falling stars, instruments and myths.
  Alessandro Volta and the birth of modern
  meteorology
• Gigli Berzolari Volta's teaching in Como and
  Pavia Moments of academic life under all flags
• Hackmann The enigma of Voltas contact tension
  and the development of the dry pile
• Heilbron Analogy in Volta's exact natural
  philosophy
• Holmes Phlogiston in the air

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Nuova Voltiana

• Home Voltas English connections
• Hutchison Forces and facts Yet another fragment
  of the explanation for late 18C dynamism
• Kipnis Debating the nature of the voltaic
  electricity, 1800-1850
• Kleinert Volta and the German controversy about
  physics and Naturphilosophie, and Volta's
  relations with Johann Wilhelm Ritter
• Kragh Confusion and Controversy
  Nineteenth-Century Theories of the Voltaic Pile

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Nuova Voltiana

• Martins Romagnosi and Voltas pile Early
  difficulties in the interpretation of voltaic
  electricity
• Pepe Volta, the "Istituto Nazionale" and
  scientific communication in early 19th-century
  Italy
• Seligardi Volta and the synthesis of water Some
  reasons for a missed discovery
• Teichmann Volta and the quantitative
  conceptualisation of electricity From electrical
  capacity to the preconception of Ohms law

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Volta and the Web

• www.Cilea.it/Volta99
• Click Alessandro Volta and see
• A biography
• The Cabinet
• The Collected Works
• A bibliography