Bagdad Ipod

Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta has been widely credited with inventing the electric cell, or storage battery. What a relief. Hanging out for lightning is a thing of the past. And grabbing electric eels, well, that grows stale fast.

He had been messing around with devices that produced electricity for a while, including a machine called an electrophorus. Volta coined the name for it, but it was actually the invention of Johan Carl Wilcke. He was a Swedish inventor who came up with the machine in 1762. A very big version of an electrophorus was built by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. He was a German scientist and bit of an oddball, but must have been quite fun to be around. He discovered the phenomenon known as a Lichtenberg figure from playing about with his giant electrophorus. The devise gave off static electrical sparks that he quite cleverly recorded in dust. He then lifted the pattern with moistened paper and had a real unique tree like image.

So, as usual, I am following a path away from my topic, the Bagdad Ipod. Volta developed the battery so guys like Lichtenberg didn't have to fuss with crazy macines to get a few sparks flying.

Now the thing is that there is some doubt if Volta really was the first to make a battery. Just before WWII, clay pots containing the components of a modern cell battery. The actual date of these is a matter of debate, but even the newest dates put them at around 200 AD or so.

Scholars have pondered the use of these things and most conclude they will work as batteries. Most likely real use was to electroplate metal objects, as many such relics have been found all over the area. Or, like many, priests used the electricity to jolt and dazzle the crowds.

Really though, no one has ever found any proof they were used for anything electrical.