A Field Guide to Batteries
The first battery was the Baghdad Battery, a simple clay pot with a copper sheet inside which is wrapped around an iron rod. They were discovered in 1936 in the village of Khuyut Rabbou’a, near Baghdad, Iraq, and have been dated to between 250 BC and AD 224. Ancients would have [...]
You’ll score points around your trivia circle with this one: who came up with the name “battery”? Benjamin Franklin, that’s who! He picked that name when observing how a row of Leyden jars resembled a battery of cannons. Leyden jars were then a primitive form of capacitors, which were made to store large amounts of [...]
1. Turn down the brightness on your monitor. – Seriously, your computer is not a sunlamp. I’ve seen people using laptops where the monitor is turned all the way up until they’re getting a tan from using it. Your screen should have the brightness turned down until you can just read the text.
2. Minimize external [...]
Since the very dawn of the Industrial Age, people have worked to harness the natural forces of power to do our work for us. Producing, storing, using, and recycling energy is the key cornerstone of our industrial technology. We keep making improvements as we study deeper into the science of energy management, and perhaps someday [...]
