Born on this date in 1737 was Luigi Galvani, Italian physicist. Here are 10 things you might not know about him:
He was born in Bologna, Italy, Via Marconi, 25, to be exact. The house in which he was born is still standing.
His father was Domenico Galvani, a goldsmith, and his mother was called Barbara Caterina Foschi.
Galvani was a very religious man and had a strong faith since his youth. At 15 he considered taking religious vows, but his parents were against it.
He went to university in Bologna to study medicine instead, graduating in 1759. He also took a degree in philosophy.
His thesis was on the formation and development of bones. From there he went on to become a lecturer in anatomy at the University of Bologna and professor of obstetrics at the Institute of Arts and Sciences.
He was also a member of the Bologna Academy of Science, of which he would become president in 1772. It was here that he met his wife, Lucia, who was the daughter of a professor there. Lucia died in 1790 at just 47. The couple had no children.
Galvani is best known for his experiments into what he called animal Electricity. He discovered this by accident on 20 September 1786. When he touched the nerves in a Frog’s leg with scissors during an electrical storm, the muscles contracted.
His work inspired Mary Shelley, who’d taken his report as holiday reading on the trip where a ghost story writing contest resulted in her creating Frankenstein.
When Napoleon’s Cisalpine Republic was established, Galvani refused to swear allegiance to it and so was, as we would say today, cancelled. He was dropped from the faculty rolls, and his salary was terminated. He moved back to the family home with his brother. Although the law did change so that he could be a professor without swearing allegiance to Napoleon, by this time the stress of it all had ruined his health to the extent that he died at just 61 in the house in which he was born.
The world galvanise, meaning to shock or excite (someone) into taking action, originates from Galvani and his work.
The first in a new series! It has invading aliens, gladiator-style contests, rivalry and romance.
The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.
Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.
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