Eighteenth-century discoveries about electricity proved at the cutting edge of both science and religion. Many Christian clergy, like John Wesley, preached that mysterious electrical charges from the atmosphere came directly from God.
Yet an Italian aristocrat named Count Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta sought electricity over faith, despite the encouragement of his prominent family to join the clergy. His discoveries about electric properties eventually allowed him to efficiently store electrical charges. By the time he created the voltaic pile, his prestige allowed him to become a count and receive a medal for the Legion of Honour from Napoleon. Most enduringly, the SI unit for electric potential was dubbed “the volt”.
Image credit: Alessandro Volta by unknown. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
