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A fact from Frog battery appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 8 May 2011 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
"... although this was not fully understood at the time" - I don't think you should use "at the time" here but rather something like "when it was invented".
Done
The first sentence in "Background" is too long and needs splitting in two. I think it additionally needs some commas.
Done
"... carried on responding longer than other animal candidates for this role." - I would add "those of" as the subject of this sentence has moved on from frogs to legs, if you see what I mean.
That would imply that it was always legs that were used wouldn't it? Which is not verified by the sources. Just noticed that Valli (used to verify this passage) was missing from the bibliography but is in now.
"Damaging the muscle during this procedure would detract from the results."- This seems curious as later in the article, you refer to the half thighs being particularly successful because of the greater muscle damage.
I'll start a new thread on this.
In the first paragraph of "Preparation", you mention the "cavity of the cut surface". Where has this cavity come from?
Presumably it is a physiological feature of the muscle (edit: perhaps where the bone used to be), but "I don't know" is the real answer.
"The ends of the pile laid in cups ..." - Perhaps "were placed" would be better than "laid".
Done
"... the not exactly correct theory ..." - Rather than including this phrase in the middle of a sentence, it might be better to rearrange the sentence and start it with "At that time it was thought that ...", continuing "It is now known that this is incorrect and that the half-thighs ..."
That construction would not make sense if implemented exactly as proposed. I'm sure something like it could be worked out, but it would end up longer and I am not really seeing why this would improve clarity.
This statement should really come at the end of the first paragraph of Preparation. Another alternative way of expressing it would be: "It was thought (incorrectly) that there was an electric current in muscles, continually flowing from the inside to the outside, and this belief led to the muscle surfaces being connected in this way." I don't much like the present construction. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 19:55, 10 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You may be right about overlink but these creatures may not be familiar to readers in say Asia. Galvanoscope could do with a link. Is it the same as a galvanometer? Backwater (river) would do, a metaphor equivalent to "no longer mainstream". Cwmhiraeth (talk) 19:55, 10 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Eels and pigeons are found worldwide. Rabbits are found in most of the world, including Southeast Asia. Tigers are not found in Texas, but I'm pretty sure everyone there knows what they are. I'm not going to fight over it, but I'm not inclined to put it in myself either. Galvanoscope and galvanometer are sometimes used synonymously but they can be distinguished by a galvanometer measures current whereas a galvanoscope merely gives an indication of its presence. Galvanometers were available to Bird, but many researchers of the time still preferred the frog's leg galvanoscope as it was more sensitive. In any case, the article does not discuss these instruments, the only reference to galvanoscopes is the frog's leg kind so wikilinking to galvanometer would be inappropriate and galvanoscope does not exist. Frog's leg galvanoscope is redlinked in the article and I intend to write an article one day. While it is true that backwater (river) is the metaphor being used in the expression, I think a reader would be quite confused by following that link if they did not already understand the underlying metaphor, it does nothing to explain the term. A wikilink to Wiktionary would be more appropriate if we need one at all. SpinningSpark00:17, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The "History" section is largely satisfactory.
It would be interesting to know what sort of voltage a frog battery could produce.
Hand-waving answer, probably around 10 volts, but I don't have a source. The historical sources, where they give data at all, give the angle of deflection of a galvanometer (Matteucci, 20 frogs, 90° transient, 30° steady) but this is current, not voltage, and I'm not sure that this is particularly helpful to the modern reader, especially as it is dependent on the sensitivity of the individual instrument used. There is even less data on voltage, indirectly found by charging a capacitor and measuring the charge so stored. The instrument used for this was an electrometer and they usually just reported that the leaves separated (or did not as the case may be). I don't think any of this is going to find its way into {{convert}} any time soon.
An image is captioned "Bird's frog battery, 1848". Was Bird responsible for frog battery experiments, or did he just report on what Matteucci had done?
My understanding is that he used this setup in demonstrations to his students but did not do any original work. In any event, it is definitely his diagram. SpinningSpark16:32, 10 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"Damaging the muscle during this procedure would detract from the results." I thought this might come up. It is clear from the sources that this is what they believed. It is also quite clear from what we now know of injury potential that their reasoning was flawed. Note that the cut end (the blunt end) is part of the procedure so they are not likely to be referring to damage here. Damage at the other end (the pointy end) will cause an injury potential there as well, and this is likely to be in the opposite sense to the main potential if they connect the thighs end-to-end. So the historical sources may well be right that damage other than at the intended cut may reduce the voltage obtained. Unfrotunately, I have no source to back up my original research so I merely stated the claim "as is" from the sources. Any advice on how to handle this would be appreciated. SpinningSpark16:49, 10 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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