The Italian government is promoting the renaming of the international unit of electric potential from “volt” to “volta,” in honor of the Italian physicist and chemist Alessandro Volta, nearly 200 years after his death.
Volta, who is credited with the invention of the electric battery (1799) and the discovery of methane (1766), gave his name to the unit “volt,” although in an anglicized form.
The undersecretary responsible for technological innovation, Alessio Butti, traveled to Paris and, on the sidelines of the G7 ministerial meeting on digital technology, contacted the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM), the institution that defines measurement units worldwide, to initiate an official process.
This body is one of the three responsible for overseeing and maintaining the International System of Units. Here the platinum-iridium cylinder is kept, which until 2019 was the unit of measure used to define the kilogram. This unit of measure is now calculated based on the Planck constant. And it is here that Butti proposes to replace the definition of volt with that of volta.
According to the newspaper Corriere della Sera, the current denomination “volt” is an exception in the international system: all other commemorative units retain the scientist’s surname in full: the watt (from James Watt), the ampere (from André-Marie Ampère), the newton (from Isaac Newton), and the pascal (from Blaise Pascal).
The newspaper indicated that Volta, one of the greatest Italian scientists of all time, had the “A” removed when he was named as the unit for electric potential, electromotive force, and electric tension. “It was probably an unconscious choice of anglicization: in English, names almost never end in an open vowel, and ‘volt’ probably sounded more natural. Restoring the ‘A’ would mean aligning with an already established convention for other units of measure,” the newspaper stated.
“The Italian proposal goes far beyond the linguistic issue and represents the desire to give important historical recognition to one of the fathers of modern science, whose work radically changed humanity’s relationship with electricity and technological progress,” Butti said in a statement.
“Promoting Alessandro Volta means remembering that Italy is not only the heir of a great scientific tradition, but a country that wishes to continue contributing, with authority, to the main processes of international technological innovation,” he added.
Italy has undertaken an official staged process: first, a national name change; then, international communication; and finally, building global consensus before the formal vote at the BIPM General Conference, scheduled for October 2026.
Italy wants to be prepared as the year 2027 approaches, the bicentennial of Volta’s death. The Italian physicist and chemist died on March 5, 1827, just after turning 82, at his estate in Camnago, Como, Italy, now called “Camnago Volta” in his honor.
