Italy Asks International Science to Change “Volt” to “Volta” in Honor of Alessandro Volta
The Government Is Asking the International Bureau of Weights and Measures to Restore Alessandro Volta’s Full Name to the Unit Named After Him.In what may be the most Italian government initiative in years, Italy has formally asked the international body that governs units of measurement to change the name of electrical voltage from “volt” to “volta.” The request was made by Alessio Butti, the Italian undersecretary to the Prime Minister with responsibility for technological innovation, during a meeting in Paris with Annette Koo, director general of the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM), the international organisation that oversees the International System of Units.The argument, on its face, is simple and defensible. Most units of measurement named after scientists retain the scientist’s full surname in lowercase: newton, watt, hertz, ampere, ohm. Electrical voltage is named after Alessandro Volta, the Como-born physicist who invented the electric battery and laid the foundation for modern electrical science. And yet, inexplicably, his surname has been truncated to “volt,” losing the final vowel that would make it “volta.”
Why Now?
The timing is deliberate. 2027 marks the 200th anniversary of Volta’s death. The Italian government sees the change as a way to honour one of the fathers of modern science and to restore what Butti describes as “a historical, scientific and cultural recognition to one of the fathers of modern science, whose work radically changed humanity’s relationship with electricity and technological progress.”The proposal goes beyond mere linguistics, according to Butti. It is, he argues, a statement that Italy remains a participant in global scientific advancement, not merely an heir to past glories.
The Practical Question
What makes this initiative particularly Italian is that it raises a genuinely interesting question about international scientific nomenclature while simultaneously being completely impractical to implement. Every physics textbook, every electrical schematic, every piece of equipment labelled with the unit of voltage around the world would technically need to be updated. The BIPM would have to approve the change. Every country would need to adopt it.The likelihood of this happening is vanishingly small. International scientific bodies move with glacial slowness, and changing a fundamental unit of measurement that has been in use for over a century is not something undertaken lightly.
The Symbolic Value
What matters is not whether the change will be approved, it almost certainly will not be, but what it represents. Italy is saying, publicly and to an international body, that it believes Alessandro Volta deserves the same respect accorded to Newton, Volta’s contemporary across the Alps. It is a small act of national assertion, dressed up as a technical correction.
In a political moment when Italy is pushing for recognition as a Mediterranean power, when it is making arguments about energy independence and technological sovereignty, when it is asserting itself on questions of AI and defence, the government has chosen to make one of its arguments in the language of physics nomenclature.
It is, in its own way, perfectly Italian: pedantic, culturally rooted, impractical, and not entirely without merit.
