Patricia Fara: evaluation

Transcript context

…Looking to the history of science more broadly, investigators have known about static electricity for a long, long time — since the ancient Greeks. If it wasn’t Benjamin Franklin, who is actually the researcher who deserves credit for discovering what you might call the full power of electricity? How does that happen exactly? I think the person who deserves most credit for identifying it was Alessandro Volta, the Italian researcher. Because you’re right — people have been able to generate static electricity for a long while. There was a big argument. Is the electricity generated by a machine — by human beings — is that the same sort of electricity as exists inside our bodies? What Volta was able to do — he created a thing called a pile, which was a precursor of a modern battery. He managed to produce a current of electricity, and he showed that it’s the same as the electricity that’s in our bodies. So I think Alessandro Volta is the most important person in the creation of current electricity as opposed to static electricity. So many factors seem to lie behind the origins of the Scientific Revolution in England, but also in Europe more generally. Which do you think is the underrated or under-discussed cause of the Scientific Revolution?…

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