Battery History - Battery KidsBattery Kids Contact Us Battery History The first battery was created by Alessandro Volta in 1800. To create the Volta battery, he made a stack by alternating layers of zinc, blotting paper soaked in salt water, and silver. This arrangement was known as a voltaic pile. The top and bottom layers of the pile must be different metals. If you attach a wire to the top and bottom of the pile, you can measure a voltage and a current from the pile. The pile can be stacked as high as you like, and each layer will increase the voltage by a fixed amount. In the 1800s, before the invention of the electrical generator (the generator was not invented and perfected until the 1870s), the Daniell cell was extremely common for operating telegraphs and doorbells. The Daniell cell is also known by three other names: Crowfoot cell (because of the typical shape of the zinc electrode) Gravity cell (because gravity keeps the two sulfates separated) Wet cell (because it uses liquids for the electrolytes, as opposed to the modern dry cell) 60 Responses to Battery History Emma (Mrs.

J) Alessandro Volta - Biography, Facts and Pictures Blog Alessandro Volta Alessandro Volta was a physicist, chemist and a pioneer of electrical science. He is most famous for his invention of the electric battery. In brief he: • Invented the first electric battery – which people then called the “voltaic pile” – in 1800. Using his invention, scientists were able to produce steady flows of electric current for the first time, unleashing a wave of new discoveries and technologies. • Was the first person to isolate methane. • Discovered methane mixed with air could be exploded using an electric spark: this is the basis of the internal combustion engine. • Discovered “contact electricity” resulting from contact between different metals. • Recognized two types of electric conduction. • Wrote the first electromotive series. This showed, from highest to lowest, the voltages that different metals can produce in a battery. (We now talk of standard electrode potentials, meaning roughly the same thing.) • Discovered that electric potential in a capacitor is directly proportional to electric charge. In recognition of Alessandro Volta’s contributions to science, the unit of electric potential is called the volt.

Advertisements Early Life and Education Alessandro Volta was born in Como, Lombardy, Italy, on February 18, 1745. His family was part of the nobility, but not wealthy. Until the age of four, he showed no signs of talking, and his family feared he was not very intelligent or possibly dumb. Fortunately, their fears were misplaced. When he was seven, his father died leaving unpaid debts. The young Alessandro Volta was educated at home by his uncle until he was twelve years old. He then started studies at a Jesuit boarding school. The Jesuit school charged no fees, but pressurized him to become a priest. His family did not want this, and withdrew him from the school after four years. Volta then studied at the Benzi Seminary until reaching eighteen years of age. Volta’s family wanted him to become a lawyer. Volta had his own ideas! He was interested in the world around him; he wanted to be a scientist. Although as a child he had been slow to speak Italian, Volta now seemed to have a special talent for languages. Before he left school, he had learned Latin, French, English and German.

His language talents helped him in later life, when he traveled around Europe, discussing his work with scientists in Europe’s centers of science. Aged 18, Volta was bold enough to begin an exchange of letters about electricity with two leading physicists: Jean-Antoine Nollet in Paris, and Giambatista Beccaria in Turin. Beccaria did not like some of Volta’s ideas and encouraged him to learn more by doing experiments. When he wrote his first dissertation, Volta addressed it and dedicated it to Beccaria. “You must be ready to give up even the most attractive ideas when experiment shows them to be wrong.” Alessandro Volta Volta’s Career Timeline Before the Battery Amateur Scientist, Inventor, Teacher and Physics Professor 1765 – Volta had reached 20 years of age. His wealthy friend Giulio Cesare Gattoni had built a physics laboratory in his home. For several years he kindly allowed Volta to do experiments in this laboratory. 1765 – Volta wrote his first scientific paper, which he addressed to Giambatista Beccaria, about static electricity generated by rubbing different substances together – i.e. triboelectricity.

1769 – Volta published a dissertation titled On the Attractive Force of the Electric Fire, and on the Phenomena Dependent On It, which he sent to Beccaria. He discussed his ideas on the causes of electrical attraction and repulsion and compared these with gravity. He set out his position that, like gravity, static electricity involved action at a distance. The main scientists influencing his thinking were Isaac Newton, Roger Boscovich, Benjamin Franklin and Giambatista Beccaria himself. 1771 – Volta read Joseph Priestley’s 1767 review of scientific research on electricity. He learned that some discoveries he had made recently had already been made by others. 1774 – Volta began work overseeing schools in Como. He said that teaching in Como’s classrooms should be modernized. He wanted the children to spend more time learning science and modern languages. 1775 – Volta began teaching experimental physics in Como’s public grammar school, where he worked until 1778. 1775 – Volta wrote a letter to Joseph Priestley. He explained how he had invented a device which was a source of static electricity: the electricity could be transferred to other objects.

We call this device the electrophorus. Volta wanted to know if the device was a new invention. Priestly told him Johann Wilcke had invented such a device in 1762, but Volta had invented it independently. Priestley encouraged Volta to keep up his interesting research work. 1776 – Aged 31, Volta was the first person to isolate methane gas. He discovered that a methane-air mixture could be exploded in a closed container with an electric spark. In the future, an electrically started chemical reaction like this would be the basis of the internal combustion engine. 1776 – Volta suggested that the sparking apparatus he used to explode methane could also be used to send an electric signal along a wire from Como to the city of Milan. “What is it possible to do well, in physics particularly, if things are not reduced to degrees and measures?” Alessandro Volta, 1792 1777 – Volta invented a much better eudiometer than any that had gone before. A eudiometer tests how much oxygen is present in air to determine how good for breathing it is.

Volta’s eudiometer was superior to others because it used hydrogen as the gas reacting with oxygen, giving a clean, reliable reaction. The reaction was also cleanly started using an electric spark. The eudiometer worked on the basis that the decrease in volume of hydrogen after sparking was proportional to the amount of oxygen present in air. 1777 – Volta set out on a scientific journey to Switzerland and France. He met other scientists and showed them his innovations in electrical equipment. He also traveled so that his name would become better known outside Italy. 1778 – Volta was appointed to the Chair of Experimental Physics at the University of Pavia, about 55 miles (85 km) from Como, a position he would hold for over 40 years. 1778 – Volta discovered that the electrical potential (we now often call this the voltage) in a capacitor is directly proportional to electrical charge. 1781 to 1782 – Volta traveled around most of Europe’s major scientific centers, including the French Academy in Paris, demonstrating his electrical equipment and inventions to eminent people such as Antoine Lavoisier and Benjamin Franklin. Volta was beginning to become well-known outside Italy.

1782 – Volta wrote about the condenser he had constructed (today we would call it a capacitor) to collect and store electric charge, and how he had used it to study a variety of electrical phenomena. 1788 – Volta built increasingly sensitive electroscopes to detect and measure the effects of electric charge. 1790 – Volta carried out experiments on the behavior of gases. He found an accurate value for air’s increasing volume with rising temperature. 1791 – Recognizing that he had become one of Europe’s foremost electrical scientists, Volta was elected to be a Fellow of the Royal Society of London. 1794 – At the age of 50, Volta was awarded the Royal Society’s top prize – the Copley Medal – for his contributions to scientific understanding of electricity. Invention of the Electric Battery A Feud over Frogs’ Legs led to the Battery Volta did not set out to invent the battery. His experiments in this area were actually performed to show the claims of another scientist were wrong. That scientist was another Italian, Luigi Galvani. Jumping Frogs’ Legs Galvani discovered that contact between frog leg nerves and different metals caused the legs to move.

We now understand that he had created an electric cell. The frog legs acted as the electrolyte and also moved when stimulated by the flow of electricity. Galvani was a professor of anatomy. In the late 1780s he noticed that a spark of static electricity carried by a metal scalpel touching the nerves of a dead frog while the legs lay on metal caused the legs to move. This was an amazing discovery: animal movement was based on electricity in some way. In 1817, this led to Mary Shelley writing Frankenstein. In this novel, a creature made from a monstrous mixture of body parts from dead people is brought to life by Doctor Frankenstein using electricity from a lightning storm. In 1791, Galvani announced his discovery of animal electricity. He believed that animals generated electricity in their bodies and that a fluid within animals’ nerves carried electricity to muscles, causing movement. He believed that electricity from an outside source released a flow of electrical fluid from the nerves, causing the muscles to jump. He also believed that animals such as electric eels could build up extra amounts of this fluid and use it to deliver electric shocks.

Galvani concluded that animal electricity was similar to static electricity, but it was different and was a unique property of living things. Enter Volta Volta studied Galvani’s phenomenon. In 1792, Volta said that the “animal” part of Galvani’s animal electricity was not needed. Animals merely responded to normal electricity. There was no difference between animal electricity and electricity. Volta performed various experiments on frogs’ legs. He found the key to getting them to move was contact with two different metals. Contact with pieces of the same metal did nothing. Then, moving away from frogs’ legs, in 1794, Volta did experiments to measure the electrical effect of bringing different pairs of metals into contact. He listed the metals in order of what he called their electromotive force. Volta’s List Of Conductors, Highest Electromotive Force First Zinc Graphite Manganese Ore This was the first time anyone had listed electrode potentials. It was the first electrochemical series. In modern language, we would say that the farther apart the substances on this list are, the greater the voltage they will produce when brought into contact or used as the electrodes in electric cells and batteries.

For example, a zinc-graphite cell will produce a greater voltage than a zinc-lead cell. By 1797, Volta had completely proved his “contact theory” of electricity. He now knew that the key to producing what today we call a voltage was two metals connected by by something moist, like frogs’ legs. The moist connection between the metals did NOT have to be an animal. Connecting the metals by placing them in a cup of dilute acid was a very effective way of producing electricity. He formally split electrical conductors into those of the first kind: these were metals, graphite and pure charcoal; and the second kind: these were substances we would now call electrolytes, such as salt water or dilute acids. An electric current would result when a circuit was built using two conductors of the first kind combined with one of the second kind. An illustration from Volta’s 1800 paper. Pieces of silver (A) and zinc (Z) connected by metal strips and sitting in cups of dilute acid will produce electricity. This could be tested by putting a finger in each of the end cups. You would get an electric shock.

Unlike Galvani’s version, no animals need be hurt in this production, except for the human tester who gets a mild electric shock. Alternatively, connecting the metals with paper soaked in dilute acid or salt water also worked. Volta said that in Galvani’s work, the frogs’ legs had served two functions: They conducted electricity as conductors of the second kind. They acted as a very sensitive electroscope. (An electroscope is a device used to detect electricity.) Diagram from Volta’s 1800 paper. The pile is made using discs of silver (A) and zinc (Z) linked in series with card soaked in salt water. The positive and negative polarities of this battery are as shown. Adding more pairs of discs increases the voltage of the battery. Volta found that by connecting up more and more pairs of metals connected with moist card, he could produce ever higher voltages, leading to significant electrical currents. And so the electrical battery was born. Volta used alternating zinc and silver discs linked by card or cloth soaked in salt water. In 1800, Volta described his results in a letter to Joseph Banks, at the Royal Society in London.

Banks showed the letter to other scientists, and arranged for Volta’s description of his discovery to be read out at a meeting of the Society and published. “I continue coupling a plate of silver with one of zinc, and always in the same order… and place between each of these couples a moistened disk. I continue to form a column. If the column contains about twenty of these couples of metal, it will be capable of giving to the fingers several small shocks.” Alessandro Volta, 1800 Volta’s Battery Unleashed a Wave of New Scientific Discoveries The battery that Volta had invented gave chemists a very powerful new method to study substances. The beauty of Volta’s device was that almost anyone could make one – silver and copper coins were available to many people, as were other metals such as iron, tin and zinc. Within weeks of Volta’s invention of the battery, William Nicholson and Anthony Carlisle built and used a battery to decompose water into hydrogen and oxygen. Within just six years, Humphry Davy had built a powerful battery. With it, he isolated new chemical elements, and deduced that chemical bonds were electrical in nature.

Volta demonstrates his battery to Napoleon Bonoparte in 1801. Napoleon was very impressed by Volta’s work, giving him the aristocratic title of Count. Davy’s discoveries of the new elements barium, calcium, lithium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, and strontium, were all made possible by Volta’s invention of the battery. By 1820, courtesy of Volta’s batteries, Hans Christian Oersted was investigating the relationship between electricity and magnetism. By 1821, Michael Faraday had produced an electric motor. Volta’s battery produced a steady source of electric current for the first time ever. All electrical devices depend on electric current. Without Volta’s invention, there could be no modern technology. Volta’s battery was an absolutely crucial invention in the development of our technology based civilization. The End In 1819, at the age of 74, Volta decided it was time to hang up his capacitors, his voltaic piles, his electrophorus, and his administrative work at the university. He retired to a country house close to his home town of Como, where he could spend more time with his wife, Maria Teresa.

They had three sons, Zanino, Faminio and Luigi. Volta lived in Como until his death, aged 82, on March 5, 1827. In 1881, scientists decided that the unit of electric potential would be called the volt to recognize Volta’s great contributions to electrical science. Advertisements Author of this page: The Doc © All rights reserved. Please use the following MLA compliant citation: "Alessandro Volta." Famous Scientists. famousscientists.org. 28 Jul. 2014. Web. < 12 scientists and their brilliant inventions Hans Christian Oersted History of Electricity - Exciting Developments in Electrical Innovation History of Electricity Click Here for E-Book Details The History of Electricity is fascinating. Despite what you have learned, Benjamin Franklin did not "invent" electricity. In fact, the History of Electric Energy did not begin when Benjamin Franklin at when he flew his kite during a thunderstorm or when light bulbs were installed in houses all around the world. So, what is electricity? The truth is that electricity, like natural resources, has always been around because it naturally exists in the world.

Lightning, for instance, is simply a flow of electrons between the ground and the clouds in the form of static electricity. When you touch something and get a shock, that is really static electricity moving toward you. Hence, electrical technology like motors, light bulbs, and batteries aren't needed for electic power to exist. They are just creative inventions designed to harness and use electric power. In the rich History of Electricity, the first discoveries were made back in ancient Greece. Greek philosophers discovered that when amber is rubbed against cloth, lightweight objects will stick to it. This is the basis of static shock. The History of Electricity. We've all heard of famous people like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Edison, but there have been many other inventors throughout time that play a crucial part in the story of electric power. Imagine a world without electricity. No computers. No televisions. None of the modern "conveniences" we take for granted. In the late 19th Century electricity was a new marvel. People had known about electricity for many years. Benjamin Franklin first achieved world renown for his experiments with electricity, including work with his famous kite and key. Until just over a century ago there was no way for electricity to be harnessed for practical use.

It was in the late 1870s when America's greatest inventor -- Thomas Alva Edison -- developed and built the first electricity generating plant in New York City. Soon numerous electric companies were competing to supply power in the nation's major cities. The focus was on business customers, although some wealthy homeowners had electric lighting installed. Because generation capacity was so limited most homes could only have three or four electric lights. And homeowners often had to turn off one light before they could turn on another. By 1920 all of the nation's major cities had competing electric companies, each with its own sets of poles and wires. In order to bring service to more people, states began adopting laws providing for a single electric company in each city. From these laws grew the "regulatory compact" which formed the foundation of the electric utility industry in the U.S. for nearly eight decades. Efforts to understand, capture, and tame electricity began in the 18th century. For the next 150 years, dozens of "natural scientists" in England, Europe, colonial America, and later the United States analyzed electricity in nature, but producing it outside of nature was another matter.

That didn't happen on any large scale until the late 19th century. Setting the stage for widespread commercial use of electricity were international researchers engaged in pure scientific research, and entrepreneurial businessmen who made their own major discoveries or produced, marketed, and sold products based on others' ideas. Electricity Personalities Benjamin Franklin Franklin was an American writer, publisher, scientist and diplomat, who helped to draw up the famous Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. In 1752 Franklin proved that lightning and the spark from amber were one and the same thing. The story of this famous milestone is a familiar one, in which Franklin fastened an iron spike to a silken kite, which he flew during a thunderstorm, while holding the end of the kite string by an iron key. When lightening flashed, a tiny spark jumped from the key to his wrist. The experiment proved Franklin's theory, but was extremely dangerous - He could easily have been killed. Galvani and Volta In 1786, Luigi Galvani, an Italian professor of medicine, found that when the leg of a dead frog was touched by a metal knife, the leg twitched violently. Galvani thought that the muscles of the frog must contain electric energy.

By 1792 another Italian scientist, Alessandro Volta, disagreed: he realised that the main factors in Galvani's discovery were the two different metals - the steel knife and the tin plate - apon which the frog was lying. Volta showed that when moisture comes between two different metals, electric power is created. This led him to invent the first electric battery, the voltaic pile, which he made from thin sheets of copper and zinc separated by moist pasteboard. In this way, a new kind of electric power was discovered, electric power that flowed steadily like a current of water instead of discharging itself in a single spark or shock. Volta showed that electric power could be made to travel from one place to another by wire, thereby making an important contribution to the science of electric power. The unit of electrical potential, the Volt, is named after Volta. Italian physician Girolamo Cardano wrote about electric energy in De Subtilitate (1550) distinguishing, perhaps for the first time, between electrical and magnetic forces.

In 1600 the English scientist William Gilbert, in De Magnete, expanded on Cardano's work and coined the New Latin word electricus from elektron, the Greek word for "amber". The first usage of the word electric energy is ascribed to Sir Thomas Browne in his 1646 work, Pseudodoxia Epidemica. Gilbert was followed in 1660 by Otto von Guericke, who invented an early electrostatic generator. Other pioneers were Robert Boyle, who in 1675 stated that electric attraction and repulsion can act across a vacuum; Stephen Gray, who in 1729 classified materials as conductors and insulators; and C. F. du Fay who first identified the two types of electric energy that would later be called positive and negative. The Leyden jar, a type of capacitor for electrical energy in large quantities, was invented at Leiden University by Pieter van Musschenbroek in 1745. William Watson, when experimenting with the Leyden jar, discovered in 1747 that a discharge of static electricity was equivalent to an electric current.

In 1752, Benjamin Franklin promoted his investigations of electrical energy and theories through the famous, though extremely dangerous, experiment of flying a kite through a storm-threatened sky. A key attached to the kite string sparked and charged a Leyden jar, thus establishing the link between lightning and electric power. Following these experiments he invented a lightning rod. It is either Franklin (more frequently) or Ebenezer Kinnersley of Philadelphia (less frequently) who is considered as the establisher of the convention of positive and negative electricity. Franklin's observations aided later scientists such as Michael Faraday, Luigi Galvani, Alessandro Volta, Andrï¿½-Marie Ampï¿½re, and Georg Simon Ohm whose work provided the basis for modern electrical technology. The work of Faraday, Volta, Ampere, and Ohm is honored by society, in that fundamental units of electrical measurement are named after them. Volta discovered that chemical reactions could be used to create positively charged anodes and negatively charged cathodes. When a conductor was attached between these, the difference in the electrical potential (also known as voltage) drove a current between them through the conductor.

The potential difference between two points is measured in units of volts in recognition of Volta's work. In 1800 Volta constructed the first device to produce a large electric current, later known as the electric battery. Napoleon, informed of his works, summoned him in 1801 for a command performance of his experiments. He received many medals and decorations, including the Lï¿½gion d'honneur. By the end of the 19th century electrical engineers had become a distinct profession, separate from physicists and inventors. They created companies that investigated, developed and perfected the techniques of electrical transmission, and gained support from governments all over the world for starting the first worldwide electrical telecommunication network, the telegraph network. Pioneers in this field included Werner von Siemens, founder of Siemens AG in 1847, and John Pender, founder of Cable & Wireless.

The late 19th and early 20th century produced such giants of electrical engineering as Nikola Tesla, inventor of the polyphase induction motor; Samuel Morse, inventor of a long-range telegraph; Thomas Edison, inventor of the first commercial electrical energy distribution network; George Westinghouse, inventor of the electric locomotive; Charles Steinmetz, theoretician of alternating current; Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone and founder of a successful telephone business.

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Johns, NL The Answer to Who Invented the Battery Will Surely Surprise You Follow Us The Answer to Who Invented the Battery Will Surely Surprise You Batteries convert chemical energy to electrical, which in turn is used to provide power to various devices. The benefits of a battery reaped by us, today, would not have been possible without efforts of the person who invented it. Advertisement Recharge Your Batteries! Each year February 18, which happens to be Alessandro Volta's birth date, is observed as the National Battery Day to acknowledge and recognize this great invention that is hard to live without these days. Everybody knows the varied use of batteries these days as they are found in several devices and machines used on a daily basis like cell phones, cars, vehicles, laptops, etc. This list can go on and on. They come in all shapes, sizes, and power capacities. There are batteries for machines as small as watches and hearing aids to as big as cars. It was the main source of electricity before electrical generators and power grids were developed towards the end of the 19th century. In spite of the great benefits that a battery offers, very few of us know about its inventor.

It was a milestone in that particular era and has proved to be highly instrumental in the modern batteries that we encounter these days. The Battery's Inventor Alessandro Volta Alessandro Volta, an Italian physicist, invented the first battery in 1800 that came to be known as the Voltaic pile. He has also made important discoveries in pneumatics, meteorology, and electrostatics, but his greatest invention for all humankind was the battery. 29 years after being born in Como, Italy, Alessandro Volta got the opportunity to serve as a physics professor at the Royal School in his hometown. In 1774, it was at this place where he contrived his foremost invention―electrophorus, a device which generated static electricity. Through the process of igniting static sparks, he studied as well as experimented with atmospheric electricity. After five years at the Royal School, he was called to be a Professor at the University of Pavia, in 1779. It was at this place where he invented the voltaic pile, the first practical method of generating electricity.

He constructed the voltaic pile by placing copper and zinc discs alternately, one above the other, with cardboard pieces soaked in brine placed in between them. This voltaic pile generated electric current. To carry the electricity over a long distance, a metallic arc was used. This was the first ever battery to produce a consistent and reliable current of electricity. It was the world's first "wet cell battery". Voltaic Pile Reconstruction Luigi Galvani, a contemporary of Alessandro Volta, had earlier come up with the theory of galvanic responses, which stated that animal tissues had some form of electricity present in them. This happened when he was dissecting a frog that was affixed to hook made of brass. When he touched the frog's leg with the iron scalpel, the leg started twitching. He believed that the energy that caused this contraction had come from the frog's leg itself. Thus, he called it "animal electricity". As a protest against this theory, Alessandro Volta invented the voltaic pile to establish the fact that electricity is produced when different metals like brass and iron come in contact with each other in a moist atmosphere, and not through animal tissues.

To commensurate the work of this genius in the minds of people forever, the unit of electromotive force or difference of potential that causes current to flow through resistance, Volt, was named after Alessandro Volta. Timeline of the Battery 1748 ― The term 'battery' came into existence after Benjamin Franklin defined it as an arrangement of charged glass plates. 1780―1786 ― The theory of electricity present in animal cells was brought out by Luigi Galvani, which provided the foundation for other scientists for further research. 1800 ― Alessandro Volta invented the voltaic pile, which was the first ever battery that produced consistent electric current. 1836 ― The Daniel cell was invented by John Daniel, which consisted of a zinc and copper electrolyte. It lasted longer and was considered much safer than the battery invented by Volta. 1839 ― The first fuel cell was invented by William Robert Grove, which generated electric current by uniting oxygen and hydrogen. 1839―1842 ― Numerous scientists and inventors improvised batteries by using liquid electrodes to generate electricity.

1859 ― The rechargeable lead-acid battery, used these days in cars, was invented by a French inventor, Gaston Planté. 1866 ― The carbon-zinc wet cell bettery called the Leclanche cell was patented by another Frenchman named Georges Leclanché. 1881 ― The first battery which had a negative electrode and porous pot kept on a zinc cup was discovered and patented by J.A. Thiebaut. 1881 ― The first ever dry cell battery, which was also a commercial success, was invented by Carl Gassner. 1899 ― The nickel-cadmium battery, which could also be recharged, was invented by Waldemar Jungner. 1901 ― The alkaline storage battery was invented by Thomas Alva Edison. 1949 ― The small alkaline battery was invented by Lewis Urry. 1954 ― The first ever solar battery was invented by Calvin Fuller, Daryl Chapin, and Gerald Pearson. Alessandro Volta - The True Inventor of Batteries?

On basis of certain archaeological excavations carried out in 1936, few scientists as well as historians believe that the battery was invented about 2,000 years ago in Baghdad. During their excavations, archaeologists found pots made of terracotta filled with copper rods and iron sheets. Electricity can be produced by adding lime juice and vinegar to this pot. But as there was no strong and confirmed evidence of these pots being used for electricity, this theory was considered unworthy. Thus, as per historical evidences, Alessandro Volta still remains the person who invented the ever-important battery in 1800. Suketu Mehta Morse Code & the Telegraph - Inventions - HISTORY.com Morse Code & the Telegraph A+E Networks Introduction Developed in the 1830s and 1840s by Samuel Morse (1791-1872) and other inventors, the telegraph revolutionized long-distance communication. It worked by transmitting electrical signals over a wire laid between stations.

In addition to helping invent the telegraph, Samuel Morse developed a code (bearing his name) that assigned a set of dots and dashes to each letter of the English alphabet and allowed for the simple transmission of complex messages across telegraph lines. In 1844, Morse sent his first telegraph message, from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, Maryland; by 1866, a telegraph line had been laid across the Atlantic Ocean from the U.S. to Europe. Although the telegraph had fallen out of widespread use by the start of the 21st century, replaced by the telephone, fax machine and Internet, it laid the groundwork for the communications revolution that led to those later innovations. Google Early Forms of Long-Distance Communication Before the development of the electric telegraph in the 19th century revolutionized how information was transmitted across long distances, ancient civilizations such as those in China, Egypt and Greece used drumbeats or smoke signals to exchange information between far-flung points. However, such methods were limited by the weather and the need for an uninterrupted line of sight between receptor points. These limitations also lessened the effectiveness of the semaphore, a modern precursor to the electric telegraph.

Developed in the early 1790s, the semaphore consisted of a series of hilltop stations that each had large movable arms to signal letters and numbers and two telescopes with which to see the other stations. Like ancient smoke signals, the semaphore was susceptible to weather and other factors that hindered visibility. A different method of transmitting information was needed to make regular and reliable long-distance communication workable. Did You Know? SOS, the internationally recognized distress signal, does not stand for any particular words. Instead, the letters were chosen because they are easy to transmit in Morse code: "S" is three dots, and "O" is three dashes. The Electric Telegraph In the early 19th century, two developments in the field of electricity opened the door to the production of the electric telegraph. First, in 1800, the Italian physicist Alessandro Volta (1745-1827) invented the battery, which reliably stored an electric current and allowed the current to be used in a controlled environment.

Second, in 1820, the Danish physicist Hans Christian Oersted (1777-1851) demonstrated the connection between electricity and magnetism by deflecting a magnetic needle with an electric current. While scientists and inventors across the world began experimenting with batteries and the principles of electromagnetism to develop some kind of communication system, the credit for inventing the telegraph generally falls to two sets of researchers: Sir William Cooke (1806-79) and Sir Charles Wheatstone (1802-75) in England, and Samuel Morse, Leonard Gale (1800-83) and Alfred Vail (1807-59) in the U.S. In the 1830s, the British team of Cooke and Wheatstone developed a telegraph system with five magnetic needles that could be pointed around a panel of letters and numbers by using an electric current. Their system was soon being used for railroad signaling in Britain. During this time period, the Massachusetts-born, Yale-educated Morse (who began his career as a painter), worked to develop an electric telegraph of his own.

He reportedly had become intrigued with the idea after hearing a conversation about electromagnetism while sailing from Europe to America in the early 1830s, and later learned more about the topic from American physicist Joseph Henry (1797-1878). In collaboration with Gale and Vail, Morse eventually produced a single-circuit telegraph that worked by pushing the operator key down to complete the electric circuit of the battery. This action sent the electric signal across a wire to a receiver at the other end. All the system needed was a key, a battery, wire and a line of poles between stations for the wire and a receiver. Morse Code To transmit messages across telegraph wires, in the 1830s Morse and Vail created what came to be known as Morse code. The code assigned letters in the alphabet and numbers a set of dots (short marks) and dashes (long marks) based on the frequency of use; letters used often (such as “E”) got a simple code, while those used infrequently (such as “Q”) got a longer and more complex code.

Initially, the code, when transmitted over the telegraph system, was rendered as marks on a piece of paper that the telegraph operator would then translate back into English. Rather quickly, however, it became apparent that the operators were able to hear and understand the code just by listening to the clicking of the receiver, so the paper was replaced by a receiver that created more pronounced beeping sounds. Rise and Decline of the Telegraph System In 1843, Morse and Vail received funding from the U.S. Congress to set up and test their telegraph system between Washington , D.C., and Baltimore, Maryland . On May 24, 1844, Morse sent Vail the historic first message: “What hath God wrought!” The telegraph system subsequently spread across America and the world, aided by further innovations. Among these improvements was the invention of good insulation for telegraph wires. The man behind this innovation was Ezra Cornell (1807-74), one of the founders of the university in New York that bears his name.

Another improvement, by the famed inventor Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) in 1874, was the Quadruplex system, which allowed for four messages to be transmitted simultaneously using the same wire. Use of the telegraph was quickly accepted by people eager for a faster and easier way of sending and receiving information. However, widespread and successful use of the device required a unified system of telegraph stations among which information could be transmitted. The Western Union Telegraphy Company, founded in part by Cornell, was at first only one of many such companies that developed around the new medium during the 1850s. By 1861, however, Western Union had laid the first transcontinental telegraph line, making it the first nationwide telegraph company. Telegraph systems spread across the world, as well. Extensive systems appeared across Europe by the later part of the 19th century, and by 1866 the first permanent telegraph cable had been successfully laid across the Atlantic Ocean; there were 40 such telegraph lines across the Atlantic by 1940. The electric telegraph transformed how wars were fought and won and how journalists and newspapers conducted business.

Rather than taking weeks to be delivered by horse-and-carriage mail carts, pieces of news could be exchanged between telegraph stations almost instantly. The telegraph also had a profound economic effect, allowing money to be “wired” across great distances. Even by the end of the 19th century, however, new technologies began to emerge, many of them based on the same principles first developed for the telegraph system. In time, these new technologies would overshadow the telegraph, which would fall out of regular widespread usage. Although the telegraph has since been replaced by the even more convenient telephone, fax machine and Internet, its invention stands as a turning point in world history. Samuel Morse died in New York City at the age of 80 on April 2, 1872. Tags

Question: Who is generally considered to have invented the first electric battery cell in 1800?
Answer: Alessandro Volta