In 1839, a 19-year-old Edmond Becquerel dipped two platinum electrodes into an acidic solution in his father’s Paris laboratory, shone sunlight on one of them, and watched a current appear on the galvanometer — the first recorded photovoltaic effect, nearly a century before anyone could explain why it worked

In 1839, teenage Edmond Becquerel dipped two platinum electrodes into an acidic solution in his father's Paris lab and watched sunlight generate an electric current — the first observation of the photovoltaic effect, and the mechanism behind every solar panel on Earth today. The post In 1839, a 19-year-old Edmond Becquerel dipped two platinum electrodes into an acidic solution in his father’s…