Volta Prize

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The Volta Prize was established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1803 to honor Alessandro Volta, an Italian physicist noted for developing the battery. In 1801, Alessandro Volta was summoned to Paris to demonstrate his great discovery before the French Academy of Sciences. Bonaparte declared his presentation a triumph, awarded him a gold medal and initiated the annual Volta Prize in his honor. The French government awards the Volta Prize for scientific achievement in electricity.

The most notable prize is in 1880, when Alexander Graham Bell received the Volta Prize of 50,000 francs ($10,000) for the invention of the telephone from L’Académie française, representing the French government, in Paris, France. Among the luminaries who judged were Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas, père. Since he was reaching affluent circumstances himself, Bell used the money from the Prize to create a number of social structures in and around Washington, D.C., United States using the symbolic "Volta": the "Volta Fund," "Volta Laboratories" and "Volta Bureau."

[edit] See also

• Alessandro Volta
• Alexander Graham Bell