PHYSICIST

Alessandro Volta

1745 - 1827

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Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta (UK: , US: ; Italian: [alesˈsandro ˈvɔlta]; 18 February 1745 – 5 March 1827) was an Italian physicist and chemist who was a pioneer of electricity and power, and is credited as the inventor of the electric battery and the discoverer of methane. He invented the voltaic pile in 1799, and reported the results of his experiments in a two-part letter to the president of the Royal Society, which was published in 1800. With this invention, Volta proved that electricity could be generated chemically and debunked the prevalent theory that electricity was generated solely by living beings. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Alessandro Volta has received more than 2,707,358 page views. His biography is available in 104 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 101 in 2019). Alessandro Volta is the 8th most popular physicist (down from 7th in 2019), the 31st most popular biography from Italy (down from 30th in 2019) and the most popular Italian Physicist.

Alessandro Volta is most famous for his voltaic pile, which was the first battery.

Memorability Metrics

  • 2.7M

    Page Views (PV)

  • 81.97

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 104

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 16.53

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 3.42

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Among PHYSICISTS

Among physicists, Alessandro Volta ranks 8 out of 851. Before him are Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Wilhelm Röntgen, Stephen Hawking, Michael Faraday, and Max Planck. After him are Hans Christian Ørsted, Pierre Curie, Ernest Rutherford, Niels Bohr, James Prescott Joule, and Robert Hooke.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1745, Alessandro Volta ranks 1. After him are John Jay, Mikhail Kutuzov, Philippe Pinel, Maria Luisa of Spain, Archduke Charles Joseph of Austria, Levin August von Bennigsen, Carl Stamitz, Johan Gottlieb Gahn, Fyodor Ushakov, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, and Johan Christian Fabricius. Among people deceased in 1827, Alessandro Volta ranks 2. Before him is Ludwig van Beethoven. After him are Pierre-Simon Laplace, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, William Blake, Frederick Augustus I of Saxony, Augustin-Jean Fresnel, Wilhelm Hauff, Maria Theresa of Austria, George Canning, Ugo Foscolo, and Ernst Chladni.

Others Born in 1745

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Others Deceased in 1827

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In Italy

Among people born in Italy, Alessandro Volta ranks 31 out of 5,161. Before him are Ovid (-43), Marcus Aurelius (121), Giovanni Boccaccio (1313), Sandro Botticelli (1445), Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor (1768), and Caligula (12). After him are Horace (-65), Parmenides (-501), Giacomo Puccini (1858), Niccolò Paganini (1782), Maria Montessori (1870), and Titian (1488).

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Among PHYSICISTS In Italy

Among physicists born in Italy, Alessandro Volta ranks 1. After him are Evangelista Torricelli (1608), Enrico Fermi (1901), Luigi Galvani (1737), Laura Bassi (1711), Emilio Segrè (1905), Francesco Maria Grimaldi (1618), Carlo Rubbia (1934), Ettore Majorana (1906), Giovanni Battista Venturi (1746), Giorgio Parisi (1948), and Bruno Pontecorvo (1913).

Italian born Physicists

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