Giovanni Battista Beccaria (; 3 October 1716 – 27 May 1781) was an Italian
physicist
A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...
. A fellow of the
Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
, he published several papers on
electrical
Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter possessing an electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by Maxwel ...
subjects in the '' Phil. Trans.'' Beccaria was one of Benjamin Franklin's more conspicuous correspondents. His students included
Joseph-Louis Lagrange
Joseph-Louis Lagrange (born Giuseppe Luigi LagrangiaAntonio Vassalli Eandi; moreover, his researches inspired the physicists of
Pavia
Pavia ( , ; ; ; ; ) is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy, in Northern Italy, south of Milan on the lower Ticino (river), Ticino near its confluence with the Po (river), Po. It has a population of c. 73,086.
The city was a major polit ...
,
Alessandro Volta
Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta (, ; ; 18 February 1745 – 5 March 1827) was an Italian chemist and physicist who was a pioneer of electricity and Power (physics), power, and is credited as the inventor of the electric battery a ...
and
Luigi Galvani
Luigi Galvani ( , , ; ; 9 September 1737 – 4 December 1798) was an Italian physician, physicist, biologist and philosopher who studied animal electricity. In 1780, using a frog, he discovered that the muscles of dead frogs' legs twitched when ...
.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.
Beccaria did much, in the way both of experiment and exposition, to spread knowledge of the electrical researches of
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin (April 17, 1790) was an American polymath: a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher and Political philosophy, political philosopher.#britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the m ...
and others. In 1753, he published an important treatise on
electricity
Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter possessing an electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by Maxwel ...
, "Elettricismo artificiale e naturale libri due", which was translated into English thanks to Franklin's interest. His contributions include a classification of luminous discharges, the collection of data on
atmospheric electricity
Atmospheric electricity describes the electrical charges in the Earth's atmosphere (or that of another planet). The movement of charge between the Earth's surface, the atmosphere, and the ionosphere is known as the global atmospheric electrica ...
, and the design of the electrical thermometer, whose invention is usually wrongly ascribed to Franklin's colleague, Ebenezer Kinnersley. 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."
Joseph Priestley
Joseph Priestley (; 24 March 1733 – 6 February 1804) was an English chemist, Unitarian, Natural philosophy, natural philosopher, English Separatist, separatist theologian, Linguist, grammarian, multi-subject educator and Classical libera ...
(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.".
Life and works
Giovanni Battista Beccaria was born at
Mondovì
Mondovì (; , ) is a town and ''comune'' (township) in Piedmont, northern Italy, about from Turin. The area around it is known as the Monregalese.
The town, located on the Monte Regale hill, is divided into several '' rioni'' (ancient quart ...
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
In linguistics, grammar is the set of rules for how a natural language is structured, as demonstrated by its speakers or writers. Grammar rules may concern the use of clauses, phrases, and words. The term may also refer to the study of such rul ...
and
rhetoric
Rhetoric is the art of persuasion. It is one of the three ancient arts of discourse ( trivium) along with grammar and logic/ dialectic. As an academic discipline within the humanities, rhetoric aims to study the techniques that speakers or w ...
. At the same time, he applied himself with success to
mathematics
Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...
. He became professor of
experimental physics
Experimental physics is the category of disciplines and sub-disciplines in the field of physics that are concerned with the observation of physical phenomena and experiments. Methods vary from discipline to discipline, from simple experiments and o ...
, first at
Palermo
Palermo ( ; ; , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The ...
and then at
Rome
Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...
. His ability as an instructor being soon recognized, he was appointed by royal authority as professor of physics at the
University of Turin
The University of Turin (Italian language, Italian: ''Università degli Studi di Torino'', UNITO) is a public university, public research university in the city of Turin, in the Piedmont (Italy), Piedmont region of Italy. It is one of the List ...
(1748). He was afterwards made tutor to the young princes de Chablais and de Carignan, and continued to reside principally at
Turin
Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...
during the remainder of his life. Here he ardently devoted himself to research on
atmospheric electricity
Atmospheric electricity describes the electrical charges in the Earth's atmosphere (or that of another planet). The movement of charge between the Earth's surface, the atmosphere, and the ionosphere is known as the global atmospheric electrica ...
, 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
Lightning is a natural phenomenon consisting of electrostatic discharges occurring through the atmosphere between two electrically charged regions. One or both regions are within the atmosphere, with the second region sometimes occurring on ...
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
The coulomb (symbol: C) is the unit of electric charge in the International System of Units (SI).
It is defined to be equal to the electric charge delivered by a 1 ampere current in 1 second, with the elementary charge ''e'' as a defining c ...
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
Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the Fellows of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...
of London, and in 1766 he contributed a paper to the "Philosophical Transactions", in which he describes (in
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
) 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
Electrostatics is a branch of physics that studies slow-moving or stationary electric charges.
Since classical antiquity, classical times, it has been known that some materials, such as amber, attract lightweight particles after triboelectric e ...
. In 1759, King
Charles Emmanuel III of Sardinia
Charles Emmanuel III (27 April 1701 – 20 February 1773) was Duke of Savoy, King of Sardinia and ruler of the Savoyard states from his father's abdication on 3 September 1730 until his death in 1773. He was the paternal grandfather of the l ...
employed him to measure the degree of
meridian arc
In geodesy and navigation, a meridian arc is the curve (geometry), curve between two points near the Earth's surface having the same longitude. The term may refer either to a arc (geometry), segment of the meridian (geography), meridian, or to its ...
in Piedmont.
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.»
Other works are "Lettere sull'elettricismo" (1758); "Experimenta atque observationes quibus electricitas vindex late constituitur" (1769); and "Dell'elettricità terrestre atmosferica a cielo sereno" (1775), the first extended treatise on the subject of atmospheric electricity.