Gaston Planté

Gaston Planté (1834 to 1889) was a French physicist, born in Orthez, who invented the lead-acid battery in 1859, the first rechargeable electric battery marketed for commercial use and still widely used in automobiles. His early model was a spiral roll of two sheets of pure lead separated by linen and immersed in a glass jar of sulfuric acid, and in 1860 he presented a nine-cell version to the Academy of Sciences. He began work in 1854 as an assistant lecturer in physics at the Conservatory of Arts and Crafts in Paris, serving as teaching assistant to A. E. Becquerel, and in 1860 became professor of physics at the Polytechnic Association for the Development of Popular Instruction, where an amphitheatre is named after him. In 1855 he found near Paris the first fossils of the giant flightless bird Gastornis parisiensis, which is named after him. He also compared static and dynamic electricity and built a device he called the Rheostatic Machine, and he was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1882.