72: battery Feb 18, 2015

Hello everyone, today is Alessandro Volta's 270th birthday. He is credited for creating the first electric battery. The word 'battery' comes from Latin the 'battuere'. The original sense was metal, and metal products being wrought and warped by hammering. Later the connotation changed to mean, "a number of pieces of artillery used together". This was where the sense of Leyden jars connected such that they would discharge simultaneously, thus operating as an electric battery, came from.
His name, in addition, is where the word 'volt' comes from.