History
In 1780, Luigi Galvani discovered that when two different metals (e.g., copper and zinc) are connected and then both touched at the same time to two different parts of a nerve of a frog leg, then the leg contracts. He called this "animal electricity". The voltaic pile, invented by Alessandro Volta in the 1800s, is similar to the galvanic cell.
These discoveries paved the way for electrical batteries; Volta's cell was named an IEEE Milestone in 1999.
Read more about this topic: Galvanic Cell
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The thing that struck me forcefully was the feeling of great age about the place. Standing on that old parade ground, which is now a cricket field, I could feel the dead generations crowding me. Here was the oldest settlement of freedmen in the Western world, no doubt. Men who had thrown off the bands of slavery by their own courage and ingenuity. The courage and daring of the Maroons strike like a purple beam across the history of Jamaica.”
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—Sidney Buchman (1902–1975)
“A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
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—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)