Is Baghdad Battery from 200 years ago… even a battery?
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By: Mehdi Sadaghdar
#BaghdadBattery #PseudoScience

Hi, I understand you'd like to learn about bad batteries. You're weird. That way. I respect that fine with me.

It's an ancient battery found around Baghdad, the current capital of Iraq and an ancient city in the old person when Parthians rule dated around 2,000 years ago. According to Wikipedia it's a set of three artifacts found together, a ceramic pot, around 14 centimetres tall, a copper tube and an iron rod, it was told that it might have contained vinegar or grape juice. This stupid thing is that people just assume this thing was a battery because it resembled a modern battery TV and YouTube channels encourage such false information for view. Saying ancient people may have been powering the lights or did electroplating.

What is it so hard to teach facts that you have to promote pseudoscience? So what happens in a workshop? Everyone gets off for ideas that may seem out there unless you have a TV show promoting her make-believe, mumbo jumbo, I'm telling you people if you really like to learn something skills share the sponsor of this video, an online learning community, where skilled and experienced people share Their actual knowledge, in form of video lessons and projects join through the link in the description and get two months of free, unlimited access and at your own convenience, learn anything you want after reach, it's less than $ 10 a month for thousands of classes to choose From back to the battery ancient people didn't have access to fancy technology, what you think they could observe electricity yeah, I mean sure the obvious effects of electricity were always present since the beginning of time, but it's not like people could generate electricity on demand. Sure sure. So, for as long as there have been fabric or wool rubbing against body or whatever, which is like forever, people have been able to generate electricity, but how could they know what they're generating is the same thing? They are seeing in the sky? Okay, okay, so they look very similar, but building a battery requires a whole other level of knowledge. Hey! Would you like some lemon with your funny? I guess building a batter.

He doesn't require knowledge. All you need is to put two different conductors in an electrolyte like lemon juice, vinegar or saltwater. People have been building it accidentally for ages. The clues about electricity were always there and generating electricity was always so easy.

It makes you wonder, let me tell you how batteries work, so every element or molecule has a different opinion about electric charges, some of them like more negative stuff and some of them more positive stuff, not that they actually take charges from the environment, because everything naturally Likes to stay neutral and doesn't want excess charges, but they are their favorite charges. From afar, like hey you negative electron mama. I see you're standing in your corner of your host atom, unappreciated yeah. I know I have a bunch of electrons, which I recall in love, but I want to make you mine.
I want you to come a little bit closer. This is the reason why, when we rub PVC to fabric, for example, PVC, Steel's electrons from the fabric and because there are non conductive, the charges get stuck in them, and so we have electrostatic charge same thing likes to happen between conductors except electrons, are fluid in These and don't get start so they remain neutral, but because one of them likes electrons more than the other one. It makes a tiny difference at their Junction. This is when we have thermoelectric effect.

That happens when we join two different conductors at a single spot. If we measure voltage at the end of conductors, we have like micro volts between them, because some electrons move from one of them to the other and as the temperature goes up, the voltage Rises too and that's what we use to measure temperature now imagine we have Put two different conductors called electrons in a conductive liquid, like salt water called electrolyte that has positive and negative ions. The electrodes are eyeballing their beloved charges not doing anything, but just watching this tension between material creates a potential for energy between terminals. Then suddenly you close the circuit, the negative electrode says: damn you negative mama.

I need you closer to feel your juicy electron. The negative ion can now come close to the electrode and repel the electron in the electrode and release its electron into it and become neutral. Ah hi, yes, dang babe, since when you became so neutral, I think we should see other atoms. The neutral atoms form their own molecules and leave the scene.

What that repelled electron is in the other electrode now which attracts the positive ions Oy. Anyone wants an extra electron me me and the positive ion becomes neutral and goes away too, and this cycle continues until all ions in the electrolyte disappear and that's the basic structure of a battery. There is a potential energy in a battery between electrodes and electrolytes. That can dissipate in a circuit in non-rechargeable batteries, chemistry changing the battery is not reversible and you have to throw them in the recycling bin.

What in rechargeable batteries passing current backwards through the battery restores its chemistry? So I guess an iron rod inside a copper part field with vinegar or lemon juice is a battery point. I admitted this vessel was a battery made 2000 years ago, but it was an accidental battery back. Then nobody knew it was a battery see. If we read the voltage between the terminals, we read like 0.4 volts.

There is a table showing the different potential of different material. You see, the potential difference between iron and copper is around 0.4 volts. But, for example, there's ink carbon batteries we make or around one and a half volts. Let's see how much current it can generate when shorted Pam, hey, you went up to like 0.2 milliamps and dropping quickly, nothing too significant.
This is absolutely unuseful for anything. Ancient 2,000 years ago, then, you have this guy, putting in series like 10 of these batteries, which are like hundred times larger than the original Baghdad battery. Putting them in series increases the total voltage to like six and a half volts that drops quickly when a two volt LED is connected to it, because the LED barely turns on and he concludes that generated energy is useful. We know, as a matter of fact now that the Baghdad battery actually works and what do mainstream experts say.

They argue that, even though it is a battery, such low voltage is not capable of doing anything useful, and this might seem like a good argument. But really it is a stupid argument as if LED is an ancient technology and some people claim they used it for electroplating, like coating, another metal with gold using electricity. Yes, that battery generates electricity, but unless you put hundreds of these tiny garbage batteries in series and parallel to create enough energy, you can't do with them. What you must understand is that being able to understand you can put your circuits in series or and that one increases the voltage and the other one increases current requires a whole higher level of electrical knowledge.

They didn't even have the copper pipe exposed, so they could connect it anywhere. It hands me a battery if it is missing the terminal and they didn't even know. Electricity runs through metals. So far, all ancient people had seen was that rubbing, wool or cotton on their body or whatever generates electricity.

If it was me, I would think non conductors are the best way to generate electricity and transfer it not metals, and even if they had seen the effect of electricity generated by a bad battery, they would have thought of it as a chemical reaction. Although all chemical reactions are also electrical trades between atoms, they didn't know this, so it was impossible for the ancient people to know they made a battery, although they indeed made a battery what the energy of a single cell was so small to be noticed as anything Usable they may have made a battery, but they didn't invent the battery. For example, if I'm trying new tea recipes and accidentally make a mixture that tastes like booger, but it's the cure to cancer and the world's hunger. If I don't know what it does, it's not an invention, I would throw it into garbage because of its taste.

Now you might ask if it wasn't a battery. What was it for? I'm hundred percent sure I don't know what it was for, but my guess is: you know when you leave your low-quality spoon in yogurt for too long and the yogurt starts tasting metallic. It's because of some similar chemical reactions. So maybe they put wine in it and the reaction enhance the taste of wine or maybe they thought, leaving vinegar or juice in copper and iron added healing powers to it.
If you drink it, I don't know now, don't let Iron Man's wife know about this soon. She'll be selling back dog battery juice that enhances your sexuality instead go to Skillshare, use the link in the description and start exploring your interests and enhance your skills. You will find all sorts of classes from our to programming to crafts from beginner to master level to learn from for less than $ 10. A month after the first two month of free trial.

The beauty of skill share is in the diversity of their material, a community sharing their knowledge and the convenience of learning anywhere anytime. I don't just do electronics, you know I edit my videos myself and I have a horrible time, animating stuff for my videos. So I'm thinking watching a tutorial by Fraser Davidson on After Effects animation would really push me over the curve you may find it super useful too. So go to Skillshare and start learning.

Thank you.

9 thoughts on “Legend of BAGHDAD BATTERY, How Batteries Work”
  1. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Prince Kumar says:

    I am from the northern part of India. I think I know what this is this. in my area that's how we make vinegar . we take mud pot – put some sweet juice like sugarcane juice in it – throw metal things in the juice with charcoal and stuff and then close it with mud . maybe its some sort of vinegar making or alcohol making thing.

  2. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars RedRamDRA says:

    I… wanted so bad for someone to explain how batteries work at school.
    All my physics teachers would say "a source of electricity such as a battery" and no one was actually able to explain the "how" of a battery…
    The skit did wonders for me to understand this. Thank you!

  3. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars weilam03 says:

    This is stupid because primative people wouldn't understand any of what you're saying. You're explaining to modern people's. Garbage

    People in the past built pyramids, you don't think they could try to run these in the thousand's or tens of thousands?

  4. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Al Pha says:

    Hey mehdi you are iranian ! Why put this huge discovery under question ! You are unhappy instead of being happy due to this discovery for your country history ! Khodaro shokr hastand daneshmandai irani ba qeyrati ke sabet konan iran ro be donya . Ba vojude inhame daneshmand dar gozashte , chera battery tavasote iraniane bastan sakhte nashe ?

  5. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Nour El Houda says:

    i prefer to name it cell. may be it is related to alchemy branch (oldest chemistry) they tried to find a way to transform metals into gold.
    the second possibility they used it for electoplating by connecting 2 separated cells the first generates electric energy that is consumed by the second where electrolyses takes place.
    the third possibility they used it for chemical reaction for example in copper_ zinc cell copper (II) ions reacts with zinc metal to produce zinc ions and copper

  6. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Joseph von Blingin' says:

    pyramids were power plants essentially. they'd attach wire to the gold cap at the top (now removed, probably stolen) and catapult an arrow up into the clouds forcing lightning to travel down the wire. obviously this is speculation but i honestly feel this is something theyd do. if i can imagine something like that, so can they.

  7. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Bart De Bie says:

    The so-called “Baghdad battery” is believed to be from the Sassanian Era, roughly 224 – 651 AD. The jar was found in Khujut Rabu just outside Baghdad and is composed of a clay jar with a stopper made of asphalt. Sticking through the asphalt is an iron rod surrounded by a copper cylinder.

    The so-called “Baghdad battery” is not really a battery at all. We know this because it bears a very close resemblance to objects with an identifiable purpose found by a team of archaeologists from the University of Michigan in 1930 at the site of Seleukia, not far from Baghdad.

    The objects found at Seleukia look almost just like the so-called “Baghdad battery,” but we know they were, in fact, used to hold papyrus scrolls because they all contained remnants of papyrus scrolls when they were excavated. The scroll-holders from Seleukia consist of a metal rod that the scroll could be wrapped around and a tube inside a ceramic pot that the scroll to be slid inside for protection.

    Most likely, the so-called “Baghdad battery” is just a scroll container. The scroll was meant to be wrapped around the iron rod, slid inside the copper tube, and then slipped inside the ceramic container, which could then be sealed to protect the scroll inside. The acidic residue on the inside of the container most likely comes from the papyrus or parchment of the scroll that the pot once contained, since papyrus and parchment are both slightly acidic.

    Eventually, the scroll decomposed, leaving the acidic residue behind.

  8. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars sunn mann says:

    Quick question using the term magic carpet in reference to the Baghdad battery could people have discovered static charge between fabrics point of my question to static charge generated between two fabrics produce more charge than a Baghdad battery if so is it possible that that's what they were talking about when they say magic carpet and electrically charged carpet because they all probably walked around in socks or something that generated static electricity

  9. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Jakub Lukáč says:

    Hello Mehdi, talking about uselessness of a low voltage, I was pretty surprised when I had read in Andy Weir's Martian that an old Mars Rover was powered by a ridiculously low voltage. I can't find the information at the moment, but in my memory it was as low as voltage of a single 1.2V Nickel battery! Concerning the voltage needed for semiconductors and ridiculously high currents needed for any higher powers (needing even more ridiculously heavy conductors), this felt pretty absurd to me. Do you have any information about low voltages for extraterrestrial usages?

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