Count Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta (February 18, 1745 - March 5, 1827) was an Italian physicist known especially for the development of the electric battery in 1800. Late in life, he received the title of Count.

Biography

---

Volta was born and educated in Como, Lombardy (Italy), where he became professor of physics at the Royal School in 1774. His passion had always been the study of electricity, and while still a young student he had even written a poem in Latin on this fascinating new discovery. De vi attractiva ignis electrici ac phaenomenis inde pendentibus is his first scientific paper.

In 1775 he devised the electrophorus, a device that produced a static electric charge. In 1776-77 he studied the chemistry of gases, discovered methane, and devised experiments such as the ignition of gases by an electric spark in a closed vessel. In 1779 he became professor of physics at the University of Pavia, a chair he occupied for 25 years. In 1794 Volta married Teresa Peregrini, daughter of Count Ludovico Peregrini; the couple had three sons.

More on [ Alessandro Volta ]

Journal of Mathematical Physics: All Topics

Lagrangian and Hamiltonian two-scale reduction
Johannes Giannoulis, Michael Herrmann, and Alexander Mielke Studying spatially extended Hamiltonian systems with coherent microstructure, it is an important and challenging problem to identify reduced Hamiltonian models that describe the effective dynamics on large spatial and temporal scales. Such models require macroscopically varying, deterministic initia ... [J. Math. Phys. 49, 103505 (2008)] published Mon Oct 13, 2008.
Approximation of center manifolds on the renormalization group method
Hayato Chiba The renormalization group (RG) method for differential equations is one of the perturbation methods for obtaining approximate solutions. This article shows that the RG method is effectual for obtaining an approximate center manifold and an approximate flow on it when applied to equations having a ce ... [J. Math. Phys. 49, 102703 (2008)] published Mon Oct 13, 2008.
Additivity and distinguishability of random unitary channels
Bill Rosgen A random unitary channel is one that is given by a convex combination of unitary channels. It is shown that the conjectures on the additivity of the minimum output entropy and the multiplicativity of the maximum output p-norm can be equivalently restated in terms of random unitary channels. This is ... [J. Math. Phys. 49, 102107 (2008)] published Mon Oct 13, 2008.

physicsworld.com: headline news

Interface superconductor turns up the heat
Mon, 13 Oct 2008 14:27:20 -0000
High-temperature superconductivity seen in ultrathin films for first time
Physicists pull off the gecko's feat
Thu, 09 Oct 2008 18:00:00 -0000
Nanotube material is 10 times stickier than the lizard
Quantum encryption sets speed record
Thu, 09 Oct 2008 13:10:32 -0000
Record bit rate heralds quantum security across communication networks

Physics Today magazine

Five Trends in Automated Test - Sponsored link
Mon, 02 Jun 2008 09:00:00 -0500
Learn about five key trends that affect the way you develop tests, both today and in the future. View video.
The larger world of nano
Wed, 01 Oct 2008 08:00:00 -0500
Research in the social sciences and humanities can help scientists and policymakers to better understand the nanotechnology enterprise and to make it more transparent to an enthusiastic but cautious public
When fermions become bosons: Pairing in ultracold gases
Wed, 01 Oct 2008 08:00:00 -0500
The unprecedented control over interactions and pairing in ultracold fermionic atoms provides insight into exotic strongly correlated phenomena and illuminates the physics of superfluidity in metals, nuclei, and neutron stars

Subscribe to Physics RSS feed