Volta: Allesandro Volta was an Italian scientist - at the start of the 19th century, he basically invented the first modern battery. His contemporary (and sometimes competitor) Galvani, did experiments putting a voltage across frog-legs and seeing the muscles twitch. This was a world-changing experiment for biologists - instead of some sort of mystical, incomprehensible "life-force", we learned that biological systems are fundamentally physical systems!

Ohm: Georg Ohm, a German physicist, working shortly after Volta (and using his battery idea) systematically investigated circuits. Kirchhoff came a few years later, further developing the theory behind flow of electricity. (Kirchhoff was a colleague of Bunsen, who developed the famous "Bunsen burner": the two of them were studying the spectroscopy of burning materials)

Ampere: Andre-Marie Ampere studied the connection between electrical currents and magnetism, basically the inventor of the idea of "electromagnetism". He built off the famous discovery of Oersted (who, in the middle of a classroom lecture demo (!) discovered that currents can produce magnetic fields. I wonder if the students in that class appreciated the huge significance of that class demo? Generators, motors, wireless communication - it all arose starting from that discovery!)

 

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