Born in 1745, the remarkable physicist, chemist, and electrical scientist, Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta, continued his consequential works and ideas until 1827 and even in following generations, as he would greatly influence the work and ideas of many upcoming thinkers and inventors. Volta originated from a small town in Italy, known as Como, Lombardy. He dedicated much of his life to his quest of knowledge: being homeschooled as a small child before attending a Jesuit Boarding school and eventually studying at Benzi Seminary. Volta's ambitious studies and ideas would prove him to be a critical thinker in the place of emerging technology, they would guide him to eventually become an effective communicator in his, as well as future societies, and they would ultimately demonstrate his independence as a researcher on an intellectual level.
The 17th and 18th century was a time of new technology, holding great inventions and prominent ideas. Alessandro Volta's contribution to this emerging technological age was fueled by his role as a critical thinker. In 1800, Volta invented a voltaic pile, or as we know, an electric battery. Through his studies of contact electricity he was able to determine and record the first electromotive series. The electromotive series showed in sequential order, the types of metals that could produce energy in a battery. This discovery lead to the method we use today known as electrode potentials. His first ideas of electrode potentials would guide to Volta's modernizing invention of the electrical battery. During Volta's experiments in the field of electrical conduction, he discovered the relation between methane and air and how it can be exploded using an electrical spark. This discovery set a basis of what we now call the internal combustion engine. The internal combustion engine now contributes to almost all engines today that are fueled by electrical energy.