Happy Birthday Alessandro!!!!

[BaalChatzaf]

Today, 2/18/2015 is the 270th anniversary of birth of Alessandro Volta, who invented the first practical storage battery for electrical energy. His invention provided a practical means of producing sustained electrical power and was used by others to discover the properties of electricity and magnetism. He reported his invention/discovery in the year 1800. Twenty four years later Hans Christrian Oersted, a Danish scientist, discovered that a current of electricity flowing through a wire produced a magnetic force on a compass needle. In short, moving electricity is a magnet. About six years later Micheal Faraday, an English scientist discovered that a moving or changing magnetic field produces an electric current.

And the rest is history.....

The electromagnetic age was born and the world has not been the same since.

Without Volta's invention** I would not be typing this small remembrance to you on a computer network.

Ba'al Chatzaf

** if Volta had not invented his electric battery, it is highly probable that someone else would have eventually.

[Selene]

Funny, he doesn't look Jewish...

Seems like he is Italian hmm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alessandro_Volta

A...

[Brant Gaede]

The modern world is hinged on Faraday.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

The modern world is hinged on Faraday.

--Brant

Who would not have been able to make the worlds first electric motor without a steady current.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

The modern world is hinged on Faraday.

--Brant

Who would not have been able to make the worlds first electric motor without a steady current.

Ba'al Chatzaf

I said "hinged." I didn't say "based." In the context of this discussion we can say "based on the industrial revolution" even though it's hardly that simple: Ayn Rand would say "Aristotle" and you might in contradistinction say "Archimedes." Etc.

I am not contradicting you and you didn't contradict me.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

The modern world is hinged on Faraday.

--Brant

Who would not have been able to make the worlds first electric motor without a steady current.

Ba'al Chatzaf

I said "hinged." I didn't say "based." In the context of this discussion we can say "based on the industrial revolution" even though it's hardly that simple: Ayn Rand would say "Aristotle" and you might in contradistinction say "Archimedes." Etc.

I am not contradicting you and you didn't contradict me.

--Brant

Faraday is key to modern physics. He invented the field concept. Maxwell had the mathematical chops to pick it up and run with it. Physics was completely transformed by the field concept. It eliminated "action at a distance" as a problem. The field is the agent of interaction connecting two objects that generate or respond to the field.

Ba'al Chatzaf