Italian physicist
Giovanni Battista Beccaria
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Born
| Francesco Ludovico Beccaria
(
1716-10-03
)
3 October 1716
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Died
| 27 May 1781
(1781-05-27)
(aged 64)
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Nationality
| Italian
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Known for
| Elettricismo artificiale e naturale libri due
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Parent(s)
| Giovanni Battista Beccaria
Anna Maria Ingalis
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Scientific career
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Fields
| Experimental physics
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Institutions
| University of Turin
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Notable students
| Joseph-Louis Lagrange
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Giovanni Battista Beccaria
FRS
(
Italian:
[bekka?riːa]
; 3 October 1716 ? 27 May 1781)
was an Italian
physicist
. A fellow of the
Royal Society
, he published several papers on
electrical
subjects in the
Phil. Trans.
Beccaria was one of Benjamin Franklin's more conspicuous correspondents.
[3]
His students included
Joseph-Louis Lagrange
, Giovanni Francesco Cigna, Giuseppe Angelo Saluzzo, and the successor to the Chair of physics,
Antonio Vassalli Eandi
; moreover, his researches inspired the physicists of
Pavia
,
Alessandro Volta
and
Luigi Galvani
.
[4]
Beccaria did much, in the way both of experiment and exposition, to spread knowledge of the electrical researches of
Benjamin Franklin
and others. In 1753, he published an important treatise on
electricity
, "Elettricismo artificiale e naturale libri due", which was translated into English thanks to Franklin's interest.
[4]
His contributions include a classification of luminous discharges, the collection of data on
atmospheric electricity
, and the design of the electrical thermometer, whose invention is usually wrongly ascribed to Franklin's colleague,
Ebenezer Kinnersley
.
[5]
Franklin noted in a letter to
Cadwallader Colden
that "he (Beccaria) seems a Master of Method, and has reduc'd to systematic Order the scatter'd Experiments and Positions deliver'd in my Papers."
[6]
Joseph Priestley
(in his "History and Present State of Electricity") declared Beccaria the "great Italian genius" who had "far surpassed everything done by French and English electricians."
[7]
Life and works
[
edit
]
Giovanni Battista Beccaria was born at
Mondovi
in 1716. In 1732, at the age of sixteen, he entered the religious
Order of the Pious Schools
or Piarists, where he studied, and afterwards taught,
grammar
and
rhetoric
. At the same time, he applied himself with success to
mathematics
.
[8]
He became professor of
experimental physics
, first at
Palermo
and then at
Rome
. His ability as an instructor being soon recognized, he was appointed by royal authority as professor of physics at the
University of Turin
(1748). He was afterwards made tutor to the young princes de Chablais and de Carignan, and continued to reside principally at
Turin
during the remainder of his life. Here he ardently devoted himself to research on
atmospheric electricity
, in which he made liberal use of kites, rockets, and iron wire for the purpose of exploring the electrical conditions of the atmosphere. Henley's
pith-ball electroscope
was his recording instrument. In broken or stormy weather, positive and negative electrification were detected; whereas in calm, serene weather "the excessive or positive was always found". The sinuous or forked character of
lightning
was attributed to the resistance of the air; and the rupture of the shoes of a man struck by a flash, to the "moisture of the feet flying into vapour". Beccaria confirmed the observation of
Andrew Gordon
that water evaporates more rapidly when electrified. He was also among the first to recognize and clearly state that the electrical charge on a conductor is confined to the surface. An experimental demonstration of this law of electrostatics was devised by
Cavendish
in 1775 and independently by
Coulomb
in 1788 and popularized in 1816 by
Biot
, whose name it usually bears. Beccaria adopted the two-fluid theory of
Franklin
as well as the views of the American philosopher on the preventive and protective functions of lightning conductors.
In May 1755 Beccaria was elected
Fellow of the Royal Society
of London,
[9]
and in 1766 he contributed a paper to the "Philosophical Transactions", in which he describes (in
Latin
) five of the more important of his experimental researches. In 1770 he contributed a second paper (also in Latin) in which he expounds five theorems followed by fifteen corollaries in
electrostatics
. In 1759, King
Charles Emmanuel III of Sardinia
employed him to measure the degree of
meridian arc
in Piedmont.
[8]
His principal work is his treatise "Dell'elettricismo artificiale e naturale" (1753), which was translated into
English
in 1778.
Franklin considered "Dell'elettricismo" ≪one of the best pieces on the subject . . . in any language.≫
[10]
Other works are "Lettere sull'elettricismo" (1758); "Experimenta atque observationes quibus electricitas vindex late constituitur" (1769); and "Dell'elettricita terrestre atmosferica a cielo sereno" (1775), the first extended treatise on the subject of atmospheric electricity.
[11]
Works
[
edit
]
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
Pace 1952
, p. 406.
- ^
a
b
Cerruti, Luigi. “Dante's Bones: Geography and History of Italian Science, 1748?1870”, in Kostas Gavroglu (ed.),
Sciences in the European Periphery During the Enlightenment
(Dodrecht: Kluwer, 1999), p. 111.
- ^
Heilbron, J. L. (2022).
Electricity in the 17th and 18th Centuries. A Study of Early Modern Physics
.
University of California Press
. p. 370.
ISBN
9780520334595
.
- ^
Benjamin Franklin to Cadwallader Colden, 30 August 1754. In L.W. Labaree (ed.).
Papers of B. Franklin
. Vol. V. New Haven-London:
Yale University Press
, 1961, p. 428.
- ^
Pace 1965
.
- ^
a
b
Rines, George Edwin, ed. (1920).
"Beccaria, Giovanni Battista"
.
Encyclopedia Americana
.
- ^
"DServe Archive Persons Show"
. Royal Society
. Retrieved
7 February
2020
.
- ^
Benjamin Franklin to
Thomas-Francois Dalibard
, 29 June 1755 in Benjamin Franklin,
Experiences et Observations sur l’Electricite faites a Philadelphie en Amerique
, Thomas-Francois Dalibard, trans. (2d edit., 2 vols., Paris, 1756), II, 307?19 (
online
).
- ^
Good, Gregory (2003). "Atmospheric Electricity". In J. L. Heilbron (ed.).
Oxford Companion to the History of Modern Science
. New York:
Oxford University Press
. pp. 67?68.
References
[
edit
]
-
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
public domain
:
Chisholm, Hugh
, ed. (1911). "
Beccaria, Giovanni Battista
".
Encyclopædia Britannica
. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 602.
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
public domain
:
Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "
Giovanni Battista Beccaria
".
Catholic Encyclopedia
. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
- Pace, A. (1952). "The Manuscripts of Giambatista Beccaria, Correspondent of Benjamin Franklin".
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society
.
96
(4): 406?416.
JSTOR
3143797
.
- Heilbron, John L.
(1970).
"Beccaria, Giambatista"
. In C. C. Gillispie (ed.).
Dictionary of Scientific Biography
. Vol. 1. New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons
. pp. 546?549
. Retrieved
28 August
2023
.
- Pace, Antonio (1965).
"BECCARIA, Giambatista"
.
Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani
, Volume 7: Bartolucci?Bellotto
(in Italian). Rome:
Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana
.
ISBN
978-8-81200032-6
.
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