Voltaic pile Voltaic pile The voltaic pile was the first electrical battery that could continuously provide an electric current to a circuit. It was invented by Italian physicist Alessandro Volta, who published his experiments in 1799. The voltaic pile then enabled a rapid series of other discoveries including the electrical decomposition (electrolysis) of water into oxygen and hydrogen by William Nicholson and Anthony Carlisle (1800) and the discovery or isolation of the chemical elements sodium (1807), potassium (1807), calcium (1808), boron (1808), barium (1808), strontium (1808), and magnesium (1808) by Humphry Davy. The entire 19th century electrical industry was powered by batteries
Alessandro Cruto Alessandro Cruto Alessandro Cruto was an Italian inventor, born in the village of Piossasco, who created the incandescent light bulb. Son of a construction foreman, he attended the school of architecture at the University of Turin, while also attending Physics and Chemistry lectures with the dream of crystallizing carbon to obtain diamonds. In 1872 he opened a small workshop in his home village where he conducted tests on the production of pure carbon from ethylene. His efforts were rewarded in 1874 when his experiments succeeded in producing thin sheets of graphite, albeit his initial purpose was that of producing diamonds.