Giovanni Battista Beccaria | |
|---|---|
 Beccaria by Andrea Gastaldi, 1845 | |
| Born | Francesco Ludovico Beccaria 3 October 1716 |
| Died | 27 May 1781 (aged 64) |
| Nationality | Italian |
| Known for | Elettricismo artificiale e naturale libri due |
| Parent(s) | Giovanni Battista Beccaria Anna Maria Ingalis |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Experimental physics |
| Institutions | University of Turin |
| Notable students | Joseph-Louis Lagrange |
Giovanni Battista Beccaria FRS (Italian: [bekkaˈriːa]; 3 October 1716 – 27 May 1781)[1] was an Italian physicist. A fellow of the Royal Society, he published several papers on electrical subjects in the Phil. Trans.[2] 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]
- ^ Herbermann 1913.
- ^ Chisholm 1911.
- ^ 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.