Italophilia priest and mathematician, born in 1598, is known for his work on indivisibles, a precursor of infinitesimal calculus, and for Cavalieri's principle in geometry, which partially anticipated integral calculus. Alessandro Volta, born in Como in 1745, invented the first true electrical battery, known as the voltaic pile. It provided a continuous source of electric current, which greatly benefitted Ampere, Ohm and other electrical experimenters in their development of basic electrical theory. A unit of electricity (volt) is named in his honor. Italians such as Fallopio, Eustachi, Malpighi, Morgagni and Valsalva were important pioneers of modern anatomy at the University of
Volta potential electrostatic potentials, but instead the difference in Fermi level between the two materials, a difference that is exactly zero at equilibrium. The Volta potential however corresponds to a real electric field in the spaces between and around the two metal objects, a field generated by the accumulation of charges at their surfaces. The total charge formula_2 over each objects' surface depends on the capacitance formula_3 between the two objects, by the relation formula_4 where formula_5 is the Volta potential. It follows therefore that the value of the potential can be measured by varying the capacitance between the materials by a