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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with

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Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello everyone,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Polette

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Speaker 1: and I'm an editor of how stuff Works dot Com.

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Speaker 1: Sitting across from me as usual as senior writer Jonathan Strickland.

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Speaker 1: Resistance is useless. That was because of an honor of

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Speaker 1: our topic today, Yes, batteries. We're gonna talk about batteries. Now.

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Speaker 1: This kind of falls in line with some of our

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Speaker 1: earlier podcasts. You may remember our Basic Electronics podcast that

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Speaker 1: we did ages ago, and this kind of falls into

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Speaker 1: that same sort of category. We wanted to kind of

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Speaker 1: talk about what batteries are, how they work, and kind

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Speaker 1: of just sort of give you a basic understanding. Now,

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Speaker 1: the interesting thing about batteries is that it involves a

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Speaker 1: lot of chemistry. So we should have given this to

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Speaker 1: that science podcast. Well, part of the reason that I

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Speaker 1: suggested doing batteries, and so it sort of came to

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Speaker 1: me when I was working my way through a book

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Speaker 1: called Empires of Light, which is a um history of electricity.

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Speaker 1: Basically what by Jill I'm probably pronouncing your name wrong,

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Speaker 1: Jonas j o n. And he asked, may maybe even

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Speaker 1: be Jones. But it's really uh, wellly so far, I'm

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Speaker 1: about a third the way through. The book's really interesting

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Speaker 1: and they and uh As Jill started working through the

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Speaker 1: basics of the history of electricity. Part of the early history,

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Speaker 1: of course, involves batteries because we weren't exactly plugging stuff

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Speaker 1: into the wall. Uh, really much past the early part

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Speaker 1: of the last century, you know, a little bit into

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Speaker 1: the nineteenth century, but really it's a twenty and twenty

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Speaker 1: one century, you know. Yeah, And uh to add on

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Speaker 1: to that, I mean, I have an interest in batteries

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Speaker 1: because it helps explain how absolutely ridiculous the robots and

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Speaker 1: computer's plan was in the Matrix to turn humans into

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Speaker 1: giant batteries, because really that's an incredibly inefficient way of

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Speaker 1: getting your power supply. That's a very good point that

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Speaker 1: I hadn't thought of. Yeah, I didn't think you would have,

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Speaker 1: um because it really has no other bearing on this discussion.

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Speaker 1: It was just me trying to throw in yet another

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Speaker 1: reference to a science fiction film. By the way, I

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Speaker 1: still love that first Matrix movie. I just I refuse

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Speaker 1: to acknowledge the other entries in that series. But let's

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Speaker 1: talk about batteries. Yes, and as it as it turns out,

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Speaker 1: batteries are quite old. Yeah. We're not talking about the

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Speaker 1: batteries in your closet. I mean those might also be

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Speaker 1: quite old. We're talking about the actual concept of batteries themselves. Yes. Um.

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Speaker 1: Actually one of the very first things that made me

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Speaker 1: think about it was the Layden jar, the reference to

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Speaker 1: the Laden jar and Empires of Light uh, which was

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Speaker 1: created created in Leyden in the Netherlands. UH professor Peter

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Speaker 1: van Mussen Muschenbrook and his friend Andrea s. Cuneus. We're

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Speaker 1: working on an experiment in the mid eighteenth century, and

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Speaker 1: what they discovered was they could take a jar UH

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Speaker 1: line it with a metal film on the inside and

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Speaker 1: outside about the bottom two thirds of the jar UH,

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Speaker 1: and with an electrolytic liquid inside. They could put a

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Speaker 1: metal rod down into the jar with a with a

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Speaker 1: cork uh to to cap off the battery and it

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Speaker 1: would store an electrical charge. Was it turns out, uh.

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Speaker 1: You know, I had always heard of that as being

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Speaker 1: one of the very first examples of a battery, but

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Speaker 1: back in ninety eight, UM a an archaeologist, a German

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Speaker 1: archaeologist named will Wilhelm kronig Uh found a clay jar

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Speaker 1: UH containing a copper cylinder with an iron rod in it.

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Speaker 1: And apparently the people living in the area around Baghdad

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Speaker 1: had batteries as old as well. They think they're pretty

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Speaker 1: sure it's a battery. There's no proof, but the design

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Speaker 1: is very, very similar to the laden jar and these

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Speaker 1: existed as possibly as far back as two b c. Well,

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Speaker 1: what's interesting is they found those clay jars in a

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Speaker 1: giant stone statue in the shape of a rabbit carrying

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Speaker 1: an enormous drum. Okay, that's that's a lie, but you

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Speaker 1: may you may remember what Chris is talking about if

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Speaker 1: you if you're a fan of the show MythBusters. Yes,

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Speaker 1: MythBusters did an episode about these clay jars and whether

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Speaker 1: or not the devices themselves could be batteries. One of

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Speaker 1: the theories, or i suppose a hypothesis that was put forward,

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Speaker 1: was that these were part of a religious or spiritual

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Speaker 1: ritual in which you would feel a tingling sensation by

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Speaker 1: holding the these jars and you know, essentially completing a

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Speaker 1: circuit that you you would feel the that tingling as

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Speaker 1: the electricity moved through you because it was a very

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Speaker 1: low voltage and a really low current, so it wasn't

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Speaker 1: it wasn't going to actually cause damage. As I recall

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Speaker 1: on that episode, they ended up rigging the clay jars

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Speaker 1: they made with an actual electric circuit and shocked um

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Speaker 1: atom as I recall, and to a point where Adam

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Speaker 1: was very displeased. Uh, because it could have been potentially

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Speaker 1: very dangerous. But but yes, that's a good example. Those

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Speaker 1: those may very well have been batteries. Now what were

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Speaker 1: they powering? Probably not ancient iPods No. Um. According to

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Speaker 1: the BBC article that I found on it, which dates

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Speaker 1: back a couple of years. UM, it is possible that

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Speaker 1: they were being used for electroplating with gold. UM. Basically, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, using the electric current to plate things with

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Speaker 1: a very very thin layer of gold or silver. Um.

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Speaker 1: There's no proof again that there's no documentation. Apparently the

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Speaker 1: instruction book is long gone um and um, but there

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Speaker 1: there are no the thing is what you were talking

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Speaker 1: about with the MythBusters show. Um, there's no wiring that

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Speaker 1: went along with it. So it doesn't appear as though

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Speaker 1: they were wired in a series and even with as

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Speaker 1: with the Leyden jar um, they found out that although

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Speaker 1: these these uh you know, we'll call them primitive I

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Speaker 1: guess batteries uh can store electricity, they can't store that much.

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Speaker 1: The replicas of the clay jar uh batteries from the

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Speaker 1: Baghdad Fine generally produce around zero point eight two volts each.

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Speaker 1: But when you wire them in series or no, i'm sorry,

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Speaker 1: in parallel, in parallel, um, then you can produce a

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Speaker 1: much larger charge. It's just that they didn't find anything

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Speaker 1: like that. So they could have been used in a

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Speaker 1: religious ceremony to prove uh, the the deification of someone.

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Speaker 1: If you get the shock one time and you don't

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Speaker 1: the other time, I mean like, oh wow, this this power.

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Speaker 1: They have this power. Obviously they are divine in some

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Speaker 1: way or for electroplating. Both they both examples are kind

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Speaker 1: of interesting, but there's no right and uh And going

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Speaker 1: to what you said about series and and parallel, that's

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Speaker 1: a good thing to mention really quickly. Um, if you

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Speaker 1: are hooking up batteries in parallel, that means that you're

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Speaker 1: not hooking them in to end. They are all hooked

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Speaker 1: into a circuit of some sort, some sort of of

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Speaker 1: wiring pattern where UH, that increases the current that the

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Speaker 1: batteries are able to supply. If you link them in series,

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Speaker 1: which is essentially end to end, that increases the voltage

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Speaker 1: but not the current. So series is increase in volts, UH,

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Speaker 1: parallel is increasing current and in either case they do

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Speaker 1: not affect the other, right voltage, voltage is increased, current

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Speaker 1: remains the same, or current is increased, voltage remains the same. UM,

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Speaker 1: let's talk about another early battery, UH, the voltaic pile. Yes,

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Speaker 1: this was a battery that was built by Alessandro Volta

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Speaker 1: in eighteen hundred. And what Volta did was he discovered

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Speaker 1: that by creating layers of zinc, a some sort of

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Speaker 1: of of separator which he used blotting paper that had

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Speaker 1: been soaked in salt water and silver. Then I'm sorry,

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Speaker 1: silver was the other layer. So had zinc this blotting

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Speaker 1: paper that was soaked in brine essentially then silver, and

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Speaker 1: UH found that that would also allow a transfer of

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Speaker 1: electricity if you created a wire between the top and bottom.

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Speaker 1: Not to argue with you, but in the research that

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Speaker 1: I did, Britannica said that it was copper and zinc. Well,

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Speaker 1: it may very well be In our article on our

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Speaker 1: site it says silver. We'll have to look into that,

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Speaker 1: and that's wrong. We'll have to fix it. Yeah, we

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Speaker 1: can fix it in our article that's where the wonderful

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Speaker 1: things about the Internet. Actually, they may in a way,

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Speaker 1: they may both be right, because these early experimenters were

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Speaker 1: trying a number of different metals. You see which ones

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Speaker 1: were more. They may both work. But obviously we know

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Speaker 1: that copper is an excellent conductor of electricity. Um, and uh,

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Speaker 1: it is possible that he could have built one that

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Speaker 1: way too. Yeah, it's actually it is true that you

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Speaker 1: can try various combinations of different metals. The most important

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Speaker 1: thing is that the metals have to have. Uh, you

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Speaker 1: have to have a positive electrode and a negative electrode. Right,

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Speaker 1: you have to have one metal where there's going to

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Speaker 1: be an excess of electrons. That means it's going to

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Speaker 1: be the negative one because electrons carry a negative charge.

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Speaker 1: That that would be the anode and the other ones

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Speaker 1: the cathode, which has the an absence of electrons, meaning

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Speaker 1: it has a positive charge. Now, as we know, negative

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Speaker 1: is attracted to positive and vice versas, so electrons want

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Speaker 1: to go where there is going to be a more

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Speaker 1: positive charge. They don't want to be where there's a

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Speaker 1: heavy negative charge because like repels like you know, as

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Speaker 1: far as charges go. So the trick here is to

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Speaker 1: create a situation where you have a negatively charged and

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Speaker 1: a positively charged electrode close to but not touching each other,

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Speaker 1: suspended in some sort of solution which we call the

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Speaker 1: electro light, which allows the passage of ions but does

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Speaker 1: not allow the passage of electrons to go between the two.

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Speaker 1: Then you hook the two up with a wire of

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Speaker 1: some sort which would create a pathway for electrons to

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Speaker 1: flow through. And you could actually do this yourself if

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Speaker 1: you really want. You can take a battery and put

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Speaker 1: a wire on one end and a wire on the

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Speaker 1: other end, the two terminals the negative and positive terminals,

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Speaker 1: and that would create the connection needed for the chemical

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Speaker 1: reaction to take place that produces electricity. It would also

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Speaker 1: kill your battery really quickly. Yes, um, you normally would

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Speaker 1: want to put a load on that wire, a load

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Speaker 1: being some sort of something being powered by that electricity,

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Speaker 1: like a light bulb would be a class one right yes,

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Speaker 1: or a fan or a motor or an iPod, right yeah,

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Speaker 1: And and So what happen is the the electrons from

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Speaker 1: the negative terminal would flow through the wire, would go

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Speaker 1: to whatever the load was on that wire, power whatever

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Speaker 1: it was, and then continue on the way to the

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Speaker 1: positive terminal. Now, once HiT's the positive terminal, the electrons

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Speaker 1: start to recombine with various ions that've been generated by

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Speaker 1: this chemical reaction within the battery. And depending on the

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Speaker 1: type of battery, it may mean that the battery is

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Speaker 1: slowly losing its ability to generate power and it won't

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Speaker 1: regain it and like once you use it, it's gone.

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Speaker 1: That's while a lot of the batteries are when you

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Speaker 1: go into like an electronic store and you're just buying

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Speaker 1: double A batteries or something along those lines, most of

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Speaker 1: the batteries fall into that category. I mean, you can't

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Speaker 1: get rechargeable batteries, and that's a totally different discussion. But

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Speaker 1: the in general, what we're talking about here is the

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Speaker 1: chemicals that are that make up the composition composition of

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Speaker 1: the battery, um the various electrodes. As this chemical reaction

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Speaker 1: happens within the battery and it generates these electrons and

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Speaker 1: the electrons recombine, uh, you lose more and more of

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Speaker 1: the active elements of that battery, until eventually the resistance

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Speaker 1: of the battery is so high that you are no

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Speaker 1: longer generating electrons or you know, you're not creating that flow.

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Speaker 1: That also explains why let's say that you have a

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Speaker 1: flashlight you've got you know, you leave the flashlight on,

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Speaker 1: you know how the flashlight eventually gets dimmer over very

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Speaker 1: gradual time frame and then eventually I'll just go out. Uh. Well,

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Speaker 1: that could be indicative of two things. One your lightbulb

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Speaker 1: could be burning out, or two the batteries are starting

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Speaker 1: to lose their their uh potency, the resistance within the battery,

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Speaker 1: because there is an internal resistance inside the battery. That

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Speaker 1: resistance grows as those chemicals get used up in these

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Speaker 1: reactions so that it's able to put out fewer electrons.

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Speaker 1: The voltage begins to drop, and that's why you start

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Speaker 1: to see that gradual depowering. Yeah, Volta saw that in

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Speaker 1: his voltaic pile. Um because basically what happened just sounds

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Speaker 1: so disgusting. UM because of course the salt water is

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Speaker 1: going to dry up and in the in the voltake

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Speaker 1: device and UM. At that point, the that the chemical

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Speaker 1: reaction is not going to take place anymore. But also

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Speaker 1: oxidation that's going on, what he said, because that actually

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Speaker 1: uses up the metal. I'm sorry i jumped ahead. I

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Speaker 1: didn't realize you were going to say that too. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: oxidation that the electrochemical reaction that happens inside of batteries,

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Speaker 1: an oxidation reduction reaction, which means that one of the

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Speaker 1: elements within that reaction is is oxidizing and one's reducing.

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Speaker 1: Now it's funny because reducing doesn't mean what you necessarily

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Speaker 1: think it means. It's actually the whole oxidation reduction thing

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Speaker 1: is one of those things that always confused me in

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Speaker 1: physics class um. But reduction is actually a gain of electrons.

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Speaker 1: An oxidation is a loss of electrons. That's why it's

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Speaker 1: That's why it's confusing, Right, you're reducing, but you're gaining electrons.

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Speaker 1: You're actually it's it's a whole thing. It also turns

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Speaker 1: into it's because you're you're needed to focus on the oxygen,

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Speaker 1: not the electrons, is the problem. But at any rate,

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Speaker 1: that's the kind of reaction that's going on. And yeah,

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Speaker 1: if you run one of these will take piles long enough,

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Speaker 1: the you kind of get this corrosive material that ends

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Speaker 1: up being unusable for batteries. By the way, you can

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Speaker 1: build your own voltaic pile. It's not very difficult at all.

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Speaker 1: Um In fact, let me give you a recipe. This

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Speaker 1: is a very easy way. Now, granted you're not gonna

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Speaker 1: be able to power anything with this necessarily, but you

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Speaker 1: might be able to detect the voltage. If you have

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Speaker 1: a very sensitive voltmeter, you might be able to to

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Speaker 1: to see how much charge you are creating. But what

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Speaker 1: you can do is you get some nickels, and you

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Speaker 1: get some pennies. Um Or you could use dimes and

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Speaker 1: pennies if you wanted to, but nickels and pennies are

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Speaker 1: pretty simple. And you get uh, some paper towels, and

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Speaker 1: you get some water and some salt. All right, you

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Speaker 1: create a solution with the water and salt. You put

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Speaker 1: as much salt as the water can hold in solution,

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Speaker 1: and then you soak the paper towels in that brine

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Speaker 1: solution you've created, and you start to build layers, and

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Speaker 1: you do a nickel, You do the paper towel, penny

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Speaker 1: paper towel, nickel paper towel, penny paper towel. The taller

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Speaker 1: you build that tower, the greater the voltage you will

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Speaker 1: generate UM and it should increase the same amount through

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Speaker 1: each each element of that bill take pile that you've

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Speaker 1: added each each three part element, the penny nickel and

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Speaker 1: paper towel layers UM and uh it's just a very

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Speaker 1: bowl simple uh um experiment you can do. You can also,

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Speaker 1: of course you probably have seen this. You can make

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Speaker 1: batteries other things like a potato. You have to use

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Speaker 1: the correct kind of electrodes. But if you put the

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Speaker 1: two electrodes within a potato close enough so that the

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Speaker 1: electron exchange can occur or the ion exchange I should

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Speaker 1: say can occur, but not so close that they're actually touching,

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Speaker 1: because then you just create a short circuit. The potato

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Speaker 1: will facilitate the electro light transition of ions. So you

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Speaker 1: can power like a tiny light bulb by light bulb,

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Speaker 1: I mean led light UM. And you can even hook

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Speaker 1: potatoes in series. And the best thing about this experiment

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Speaker 1: is after you are done lighting up your room with

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Speaker 1: l e d s powered by potatoes, you can have

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Speaker 1: French fries. There is there are some intermediary steps. By

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Speaker 1: the way, they don't l D s do not turn

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Speaker 1: potatoes into French fries. Belgians do. I'm a fretz. So

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Speaker 1: So anyhow, in doing research, Jonathan reminded me of this

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Speaker 1: Energizer you know, the battery company website, and uh, it

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Speaker 1: basically shows you an illustration of the different parts that

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Speaker 1: make up today's battery. And in some ways it's very

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Speaker 1: similar to those very early batteries. It's just more powerful

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Speaker 1: and and more efficient, but much more compact. Yes, that

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Speaker 1: that's true. Um also um like like as we were

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Speaker 1: talking before about the experiments done by the early philosophers

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Speaker 1: who were investigating batteries and electricity. UM, depending on the

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Speaker 1: manufacturer and the application, they may use different materials for

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Speaker 1: the cathode and anode and uh, you know, even the

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Speaker 1: electrolyte inside, depending on the purpose. Of course, they're always

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Speaker 1: trying to get a better, more efficient battery. But in

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Speaker 1: the case of the Energizer battery, UM, the cathode is

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Speaker 1: the case which is made up of manganese dioxide mixture. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's a there's a steel tube essentially, like that's that's

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Speaker 1: the outside of the battery, UM, and that that's part

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Speaker 1: of the cathode. So you've got that steel tube and

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Speaker 1: then which of course is capped on both ends. Uh,

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Speaker 1: And then the interior of the tube is coated with

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Speaker 1: this manganese dioxide mixture. It's a powder and um and yeah,

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Speaker 1: that that's the the cathode. So that's carrying the the

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Speaker 1: what they call the positive electrical charge, which sounds so

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Speaker 1: confusing when you sit there and think, oh wait, electrons

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Speaker 1: are negative. But essentially this is the positive element, right,

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Speaker 1: This is what's generating the positive ions right right. And um,

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Speaker 1: of course, as in uh Volta's experiment, UM, you need

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Speaker 1: a separator UM which is made of an energizer's case

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Speaker 1: again a non woven fibrous fabric, and the website actually

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Speaker 1: says that the anode is made of powdered zinc. Ah. Okay.

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Speaker 1: So the the operator's job here is mainly just to

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Speaker 1: make sure that the anode and cathode do not touch,

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Speaker 1: because that would generate essentially a short circuit. You would

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Speaker 1: no longer have a working battery. It would be it

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Speaker 1: would It would just be useless, is what would be.

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Speaker 1: And it will also possibly generate a lot of heat. Yes,

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Speaker 1: think of it as the battery chaperone. Now you too,

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Speaker 1: art So anyway, the zinc acts as the the the anode,

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Speaker 1: that's the so that's this is the negatively charged um material.

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Speaker 1: And then you have the electrolyte, which is the potassium

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Speaker 1: hydroxide that is inserted in this. That's what's allowing the

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Speaker 1: facilitating the passage of ions between the anode and the

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Speaker 1: cathode um. And then you've got the positive terminal and

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Speaker 1: the negative terminal. You hook the you put out of

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Speaker 1: the right right, Yeah, outside the battery, So back to

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Speaker 1: the steel part. You've got a positive terminal and negative terminal.

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Speaker 1: Oh and I forgot, there's a collector. A collector. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's a brass pen that is inserted the The base

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Speaker 1: of the brass pin acts as the negative terminal, so

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Speaker 1: that's where all the electrons are coming through. But the

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Speaker 1: brass pins job is to act as a conduit for electrons.

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Speaker 1: So so at the very center of an energizer battery

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Speaker 1: is this brass pin. You hook the plug your battery

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Speaker 1: into whatever device you're talking about, you know, like a

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Speaker 1: flashlight will stay with that. The electrons will go through

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Speaker 1: the negative terminal, through the circuitry of the flashlight, powering

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Speaker 1: the bulb, and then back in through the positive terminal,

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00:20:36,119 --> 00:20:40,320
Speaker 1: and through that process, the manganese dioxide and the zinc

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00:20:40,480 --> 00:20:44,800
Speaker 1: are going to start turning into this these inert forms

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Speaker 1: where they are no longer charged one way or the other.

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Speaker 1: And uh, eventually you start to run out of the

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Speaker 1: active components and you've got a dead battery. Right. Also

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Speaker 1: keep in mind, just gonna throw this out there. Remember

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00:20:58,880 --> 00:21:03,080
Speaker 1: electricity flows one way, current flows the other way, because

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Speaker 1: Benjamin Franklin thought that current was carried by positively charged particles,

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Speaker 1: not negatively charged. Once, as it turns out, the answer

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Speaker 1: was negative. So anyway, so that just happened. But yes,

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Speaker 1: the Energizer web page does have very helpful illustrations and

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Speaker 1: animations kind of showing you not just how the batteries work,

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Speaker 1: but how Energizer builds these batteries, the various elements that

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Speaker 1: go into it, and exactly what happens while you're powering

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Speaker 1: the device. So it's um, it's it's a nice little

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Speaker 1: uh website kind of a tutorial. Um, if you want

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Speaker 1: a more visual element to this discussion. Yeah, and it

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Speaker 1: really gets into how uh Energizer makes alkaline batteries, which is,

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00:21:51,480 --> 00:21:54,160
Speaker 1: you know, basically this the standard type that you find

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Speaker 1: on the on the counter at your local store. Now,

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Speaker 1: there are other kinds. Of course, we mentioned chargeable batteries,

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Speaker 1: but there are are lithium batteries UM, which are a

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00:22:05,800 --> 00:22:08,920
Speaker 1: little weird according to UH, to the research I had

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Speaker 1: done on Britannica UM, there is no separator between the

365
00:22:13,160 --> 00:22:18,000
Speaker 1: anode and a liquid cathode. UH. But as but a

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Speaker 1: a layer automatically forms on the lithium, which basically makes

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00:22:23,359 --> 00:22:26,639
Speaker 1: it its own separator. UH. This, this layer as it

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00:22:26,720 --> 00:22:29,439
Speaker 1: forms is I guess as it's being used, was at

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Speaker 1: least my understanding of that UM. And that allows a

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00:22:33,160 --> 00:22:36,800
Speaker 1: much more high power density, which is why you see

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Speaker 1: them the lithium batteries advertised as a more powerful battery

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Speaker 1: for applications such as cameras, digital cameras. I see them

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Speaker 1: often advertised in that for that particular application because they

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00:22:48,880 --> 00:22:51,600
Speaker 1: have a higher power density. But it have a longer

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Speaker 1: shelf life. Yeah, they do, they do, and it's apparently

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Speaker 1: because of the metals used inside. They're also more expensive. Yeah,

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00:22:58,760 --> 00:23:00,720
Speaker 1: these are the kind of batteries. The small ones are

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Speaker 1: the kinds that power things like UM like electric hearts.

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Speaker 1: You want, you want a battery that's gonna last a

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Speaker 1: really long time for that kind of thing. Clearly, you

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Speaker 1: don't want to have to pop open, pop it open

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00:23:13,920 --> 00:23:16,560
Speaker 1: and switch the nine vold out every couple of weeks.

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00:23:17,520 --> 00:23:20,920
Speaker 1: That would be irritating. But yeah, there's there's carbon, zinc batteries,

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00:23:21,000 --> 00:23:26,359
Speaker 1: zinc chloride, there's um mercury batteries, silver oxide batteries, zinc

385
00:23:26,400 --> 00:23:30,480
Speaker 1: air batteries, and there's lots of different types. And all

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00:23:30,520 --> 00:23:34,200
Speaker 1: the ones I just named were non rechargeable batteries. So

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00:23:34,840 --> 00:23:36,920
Speaker 1: you know what, I think we should probably do another

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00:23:37,080 --> 00:23:40,760
Speaker 1: episode in the future about rechargeable batteries as well as

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00:23:40,800 --> 00:23:43,240
Speaker 1: a kind of a discussion about some of the things

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00:23:43,280 --> 00:23:46,680
Speaker 1: that can happen when batteries go wrong. Yeah, I think

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Speaker 1: I think that would be, uh, that would be very good. Now,

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00:23:49,280 --> 00:23:52,680
Speaker 1: of course, uh, you know, it's possible that an alkaline

393
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Speaker 1: battery will if you leave it in a device for

394
00:23:55,720 --> 00:23:58,919
Speaker 1: too long, it will eventually corrode. Yes, but there are

395
00:23:58,960 --> 00:24:03,480
Speaker 1: other instances to like car batteries, and the chemicals inside

396
00:24:03,480 --> 00:24:07,440
Speaker 1: batteries can be caustic, so you don't and you've got

397
00:24:07,440 --> 00:24:11,520
Speaker 1: to remember that the steel canisters that surround the batteries

398
00:24:11,600 --> 00:24:15,680
Speaker 1: keep that those those elements under pressure, not the Queen

399
00:24:16,400 --> 00:24:19,359
Speaker 1: uh David Bowie song. However I am singing and now

400
00:24:19,400 --> 00:24:22,520
Speaker 1: I am too. It's a terror of knowing what those

401
00:24:22,560 --> 00:24:27,320
Speaker 1: world is about. But anyway, the the batteries keep that

402
00:24:27,640 --> 00:24:30,440
Speaker 1: those elements under pressure, and if you puncture it then

403
00:24:30,680 --> 00:24:34,080
Speaker 1: you could get squirted by some caustic stuff. So you

404
00:24:34,080 --> 00:24:35,600
Speaker 1: don't want to do that. You don't ever want to

405
00:24:35,920 --> 00:24:38,480
Speaker 1: you know, break batteries open or anything like that. And

406
00:24:38,520 --> 00:24:40,600
Speaker 1: there's also the corrosive element where if the battery is

407
00:24:40,680 --> 00:24:44,520
Speaker 1: left for too long, that can happen. Um Also things

408
00:24:44,560 --> 00:24:46,800
Speaker 1: like if a battery gets too cold, it can take

409
00:24:46,840 --> 00:24:49,120
Speaker 1: a really long time for those chemical reactions to start

410
00:24:49,200 --> 00:24:51,520
Speaker 1: up because they often are affected by heat. And if

411
00:24:51,600 --> 00:24:54,800
Speaker 1: it's too warm, um, it may not it may have

412
00:24:54,840 --> 00:24:58,119
Speaker 1: already like that, it may not perform as well. Either.

413
00:24:58,880 --> 00:25:02,200
Speaker 1: There's usually a range of temperatures at which a battery

414
00:25:02,240 --> 00:25:06,160
Speaker 1: is optimal, and then outside that range you're gonna get

415
00:25:06,200 --> 00:25:10,600
Speaker 1: a decrease in performance. But in general, like if you've

416
00:25:10,600 --> 00:25:12,560
Speaker 1: ever heard if you want your batteries to last longer,

417
00:25:12,560 --> 00:25:14,960
Speaker 1: put them in the freezer, don't do that. It's a

418
00:25:14,960 --> 00:25:17,280
Speaker 1: bad idea. No, that's not a good idea at all.

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00:25:17,640 --> 00:25:21,320
Speaker 1: All right, Well, let's wrap up this initial discussion of batteries.

420
00:25:21,359 --> 00:25:24,040
Speaker 1: We can revisit the topic in the future and talk

421
00:25:24,080 --> 00:25:27,520
Speaker 1: about some of the other issues and problems that we

422
00:25:27,600 --> 00:25:30,159
Speaker 1: run into, as well as how can a battery be

423
00:25:30,200 --> 00:25:33,800
Speaker 1: recharged if you're using up these chemicals. It's actually pretty interesting. Yeah,

424
00:25:33,840 --> 00:25:37,960
Speaker 1: I agree. I was actually surprised by the answer. Yeah. Yeah,

425
00:25:38,119 --> 00:25:41,680
Speaker 1: it turns out it is not magic um and that

426
00:25:41,720 --> 00:25:45,600
Speaker 1: means io Chris a coke. Unfortunately, we have them for

427
00:25:45,680 --> 00:25:50,000
Speaker 1: free here, so I'm not out any money, uh, Jonathan,

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Speaker 1: And um, actually this was just handed to me. It

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Speaker 1: looks like how stuff works dot Com now has an

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Speaker 1: iPhone app. See it's awesome. Yeah. Actually, um, I got

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Speaker 1: to take a look at this earlier. And guys, this

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Speaker 1: is pretty cool. The iPhone app is sort of a

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Speaker 1: way to integrate all the cool stuff we do at

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Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. So you guys may have

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Speaker 1: listened to one of our podcasts and we talked about

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Speaker 1: there's this great article on the site, but you're not

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Speaker 1: at your computer, so you can't really check it. Well,

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Speaker 1: the iPhone app actually lets you browse articles and blog posts,

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Speaker 1: even lets you interact on Facebook and Twitter, and you

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Speaker 1: can listen to podcasts at the same time, and it

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Speaker 1: has all the house stuff works dot com podcasts on it,

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Speaker 1: not just ours, but you know good ones too, so

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Speaker 1: you can listen to those and look at the articles

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Speaker 1: and and go on Facebook and Twitter and it should

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Speaker 1: work perfectly with your iPhones and iPod touches. Awesome. Well,

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Speaker 1: it's uh, it looks like it's now available on the

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Speaker 1: iTunes store, so that's good to know. How much does

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00:26:42,480 --> 00:26:48,399
Speaker 1: it cost? It's freeze sweet? All right, Well, that wraps

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Speaker 1: up this discussion on tech Stuff about batteries. If you

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Speaker 1: contact us through Twitter or Facebooks are um handled. There

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Speaker 1: is tech Stuff h s W or you can email us.

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Speaker 1: Our email address is tech stuff at how stuff works

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Speaker 1: dot com and Chris and Ill taught to you again

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Speaker 1: really soon. For more on this and thousands of other topics,

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