The voltaic pile was the first electrical battery that could continuously provide an electric current to a circuit. It was invented by Italian chemist Alessandro Volta, who published his experiments in 1799. Its invention can be traced back to an argument between Volta and Luigi Galvani, Volta's fellow Italian scientist who. Volta's invention was built on 's 1780s discovery that a circuit of two metals and a frog's leg can cause the frog's leg to respond. Volta demonstrated in 1794 that when two metals and -soaked cloth or. Because Volta believed that the electromotive force occurred at the contact between the two metals, Volta's piles had a different design than the modern design illustrated on this page. His piles had one extra disc of copper at the top, in contact with the zinc, and one. A number of high-voltage dry piles were invented between 1800 and the 1830s in an attempt to determine the source of of the wet voltaic pile, and specifically to support Volta's hypothesis of contact tension. Indeed, Volta himself experimented with a pile. •. National High Magnetic Field Laboratory.• "". Electricity. Kenyon.edu.• Lewis, Nancy D., "". On 20 March 1800, wrote to the to describe the technique for producing electric current using his device. On learning of the voltaic pile, and used it to discover the of water. showed. The strength of the pile is expressed in terms of its, or emf, given in volts. Alessandro Volta's theory of considered that the emf, which drives the electric current through a circuit containing a voltaic cell, occurs at the contact between the. • • • • •.
