Galvani vs Volta Galvani believed that the electricity making the frog’s leg jump came from within the frog itself Another Italian scientist Alessandro Volta thought differently He believed that the electricity came from a chemical reaction between the two metals found in Galvani’s scalpel A scientific feud broke out Observers divided into two camps But who was right Galvani or Volta In 1800 Volta invented a device called the voltaic pile It was made of alternating stacks of zinc and copper separated by paper soaked in salt water The chemical reaction between the metals generated electricity like Galvani’s scalpel The voltaic pile was the first battery people had ever seen It also proved Volta right He was able to show that the electrical activity Galvani observed didn’t come from the frog Q How does Frankenstein sit in his chair A Bolt upright THE VOLTAIC PILE HOW IT WORKS Each element has a unique number of electrons That makes them behave differently from each other Some elements such as copper like to give away electrons while others such as zinc like to grab them Salt water contains a special kind of charged particle called an ion Ions have an unequal number of electrons and protons and freely exchange electrons with one another They also help electrons in nearby materials move more freely A voltaic pile is made up of alternating stacks of copper and zinc separated by cardboard or felt soaked in brine salt water The zinc on one end of the stack wants to grab electrons The copper on the other end wants to give away electrons The brine-soaked separators act like bridges carrying the electrons from the copper to the zinc Those moving electrons are an electrical current ELECTRON FLOW COPPER ZINC
The Mad Scientist During the Enlightenment the pace of scientific discovery was lightning fast People worried it might be too fast and go too far Discussions about the ethics the rights and wrongs of science were fierce and frequent Mary Shelley’s novel tackled some of these ethical questions Her story makes readers think about who the real monster is Is it the doctor’s shocking creation or the egocentric doctor himself Dr Frankenstein represented the dangers of this new scientific age so well that he became the model for mad scientist characters in scores of books movies and comic strips Monster Fact There are more than 70 Frankenstein movies based on Mary Shelley’s classic novel Are you mad for mad scientists Hollywood is Compare how scientists and science were portrayed in a thousand horror films made between 1930 and 1990 30 of movies featured mad scientists and their creations as the villains 39 of movies featured scientific research unleashing a dangerous threat 11 of movies featured scientists as heroes MAD SCIENTIST FACT OR FICTION There may be a scientific explanation for the legend of the mad scientist Consider the case of Isaac Newton one of the most famous and influential scientists of all time who endured a period of temporary madness Newton it turns out experimented with the toxic chemical mercury He may have given himself mercury poisoning High levels of the toxic element turned up in his hair samples when they were tested many years after his death Symptoms of mercury poisoning include irritability fits of anger anxiety paranoia restlessness and violent irrational behavior
Franken-then vs Franken-now When Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein no one knew whether her story could come true Today we have a much deeper understanding of how the human body works and can answer some of the most perplexing questions Can Electricity Wake the Dead According to the legend the Frankenstein monster was brought to life by a jolt of electricity But can electricity really be life-giving It depends on both how long a person has been dead and the cause of death Red blood cells carry oxygen throughout the body Our brains and bodies cannot work without this precious element Brain cells starved of oxygen will begin to die in as little as four minutes Imagine now that someone has suffered a heart attack the muscles in her heart have stopped working Oxygen-rich blood is no longer being pumped through the body Unless the heart begins pumping again and quickly she will die Until 1959 there was no way to restart a stopped heart without opening up the body Now externally applied electricity can do it It can artificially make heart muscles contract just like Galvani’s frog legs causing blood and its cargo of oxygen to get moving again So as long as there is little or no tissue decay or brain damage the dead that is a person without vital signs can be revived Shocking a stopped heart isn’t a surefire restarter though How long the heart has been stopped makes a difference So does how warm or cold the person was when her heart stopped And restarting a heart that has stopped for a few minutes is a far cry from reanimating a dug-up corpse A machine called a portable manual defibrillator is standard first-aid equipment found in ambulances public buildings airplanes and trains The machine applies an electrical shock to restart heart muscle in the event of a medical emergency Monster Monster Fact The first recorded accidental electrocution besides lightning strikes occurred in 1879 when a stage carpenter in Lyon France touched a 250-volt wire
Electricity in the Body It’s said that Benjamin Franklin discovered electricity by flying a kite in a storm He was incredibly lucky He could have received the shock of his life or death A strong electric shock can kill you It can interfere with nerve cells electrical activity Depending on how severe the shock these nerve cells might stop being able to communicate Vital functions such as breathing can stop completely Remember how Luigi Galvani thought that electricity was generated by the tissues inside the frog And how he was proven wrong by Volta and his voltaic pile That’s not the whole story It turns out that both men were right Volta was right because the electrical current generated by Galvani’s scalpel did not come from the frog But Galvani was also right It wasn’t until the twentieth century that technology had advanced enough to prove it but living cells do generate electricity Like mini voltaic piles nerve cells have the ability to convert chemical energy to electrical energy
