Energize!

Have you ever wondered how the battery was originally developed? It has more history than I thought. I mean, I knew it started back a few centuries ago, but it didn't occure to me that it went through that many steps, and inventors before the first dry cell battery appeared. I just hadn't thought of it before. It went through several stages with 11 inventors.

Basically, the battery "business" really started in 1780's with Luigi Galvani, who was a biologist. It all started with a frog. As he was dissecting the frog's leg, the steel scalpel that he was holding touched a brass hook that held the leg. After seeing the leg twitching, he conducted more experiments about the effects. Galvani eventually believed that what he was witnessing, was the effect of animal electricity.

Later his colleague, Alessandro Volta, was able to produced the same effects. But unlike Galvani, he believed that it was the result of the two dissimilar metals that caused the electricity. His experiments were just the beginning. The dry cell battery didn't become reality until about 100 years later, during the late 1880's thanks to Carl Gassner.

Now, that was just the beginning. Go visit the site for the rest of the story. See the battery history unfolding all the way to the 1950's ;-) It's quite fascinating.

If you are looking for pictures, you won't find many. Asides from the text, there several technical battery illustrations . So, I guess this site will only interest people who don't mind doing some reading ;-) I did try to find a site on the net with picture of old batteries, but have had no luck. I've only seen a picture here and there. Nothing worth posting.

History of the Battery
http://www.batteryfacts.co.uk/BatteryHistory/index.html