Electric battery common fuels such as gasoline. In automobiles, this is somewhat offset by the higher efficiency of electric motors in converting chemical energy to mechanical work, compared to combustion engines. The usage of "battery" to describe a group of electrical devices dates to Benjamin Franklin, who in 1748 described multiple Leyden jars by analogy to a battery of cannon (Benjamin Franklin borrowed the term "battery" from the military, which refers to weapons functioning together). Italian physicist Alessandro Volta built and described the first electrochemical battery, the voltaic pile, in 1800. This was a stack of copper and zinc plates, separated by
Marsilio Landriani to convince Landriani to change over to the new chemistry, but he never was able to decide between phlogiston and oxygen. After 1790 he dealt exclusively with chemical applications of electric phenomena, and the improvement of physics and meteorology instruments. During his career he enjoyed a popularity comparable only to that of Alessandro Volta and Lazzaro Spallanzani, of all Italian scientists of that time. Marsilio Landriani Marsilio Landriani (Milan, 1751 – Vienna, 1815) was an Italian chemist, physicist and meteorologist. He became known with his first book, (Physical investigations on the salubrity of air), published in 1775. In it he