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Strange Case of Signor Volta and Mister Nicholson: How Electrochemistry Developed as a Consequence of an Editorial Misconduct
Author(s) -
Fabbrizzi Luigi
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
angewandte chemie international edition
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.831
H-Index - 550
eISSN - 1521-3773
pISSN - 1433-7851
DOI - 10.1002/anie.201813519
Subject(s) - newspaper , electrolysis of water , interpretation (philosophy) , construct (python library) , misconduct , multitude , electrolysis , history , art history , sociology , media studies , law , political science , chemistry , computer science , electrolyte , electrode , programming language
Abstract This Essay tells the colourful history of the invention of the pile by Alessandro Volta and of the subsequent discovery by William Nicholson of the electrolysis of water, carried out with the Voltaic pile (1800). Indeed, as a result of the dissemination of Volta's paper among London scientists, favoured by an incorrect behaviour of the President of the Royal Society, the article by Nicholson was published months before the publication of Volta's letter. The outstanding news that electricity could be generated by a simple and easy to build instrument (the pile) was printed also by daily newspapers, which favoured its spreading all over Europe and stimulated a multitude of enthusiast practitioners and amateurs to construct their own pile and to carry out the electrical decomposition of a variety of aqueous electrolytes. The correct chemical interpretation of the pile and of electrolysis had to wait for nearly one century, but in 1800 electrochemistry was born.