Eli5 How does the voltaic pile work?
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When chemicals bond together, they can do some weird, wild trickery to move their electrons around and this can cause them to stick together, break apart or change their properties completely. In the case of the voltaic pile, it undergoes a chemical reaction known as a *redox reaction*. Redox, short for *reduction and oxidation.*
Reduction is when a chemical gains electrons.
Oxidation is when a chemical loses electrons.
So lets gather a chemical with a penchant for reduction, another for oxidation and another that catalyses it and stack them on top of eachother into your voltaic pile. Funnily enough, nothing will happen… Until you electrically connect the whole apparatus in a loop. More commonly known as a *circuit*. The oxidising chemical tries to push out its electrons, while the reducing chemical tries pull in more electrons. This difference in push and pull is known as *voltage*.
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