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Weird science and weird scientists throughout history

Electrified Sheep
& Elephants on Acid

My newest book, Electrified Sheep, which is packed full of mad scientists, is currently available in the UK. The US edition is coming out in 2012. My previous book, Elephants on Acid, is also still available everywhere. Click on either image for more info.





Categories

Electricity
Topics from the archives of the Mad Science Museum related to electricity Arranged in descending chronological order.

The Electrification of Human Corpses (1803)
imageIn 1780 the Italian anatomy professor Luigi Galvani discovered that a spark of electricity could cause the limbs of a dead frog to twitch. Soon men of science throughout Europe were repeating his experiment, but it didn't take them long to bore of frogs and turn their attention to more interesting animals. What would happen, they wondered, if you electrified a human corpse?
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Johann Wilhelm Ritter: The Man Who Married His Voltaic Pile (1776-1810)

Johann Wilhelm Ritter
In 1800, Alessandro Volta announced his invention of the Voltaic pile — the world’s first electric battery that allowed for a continuous, steady, and strong flow of electric current. A young German physicist named Johann Wilhelm Ritter (most famous for his discovery of ultraviolet light) took advantage of this discovery to apply the poles of a Voltaic pile systematically to every part of his body.
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All text Copyright © 2011 by Alex Boese, except where otherwise indicated. All rights reserved.