October 2010
Beginner
176 pages
8h 7m
English

» Before Alessandro Volta invented the battery, the only way to produce electricity on demand was to use a friction machine and a Leyden jar — and except for parlor tricks, there wasn’t much use for this form of electricity.
The problem was that the electricity generated in this fashion produced a single, big, instantaneous spark that, while entertaining (see “Remaking History” in MAKE Volume 21), wasn’t usable in any practical way.
In 1799, Professor Volta was hard at work in his laboratory at the University of Pavia in Italy, investigating his idea that under certain ...
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