No problem, just tell them to ask from Baghdad, they should know where it is. :) A jug of wine or vinegar, one electrode of iron, another made of copper, voila… the Baghdad battery.
No conclusive proof. It didn’t have a passthrough for one electrode of the two. It did have remains of acid inside and corrosion on the electrodes. One can speculate whether it was an experimental device, a faulty device or something else entirely (one alchemist trying to replicate another’s secrets and doing it wrong?).
To add insult to the injury, it was lost or stolen during the war in 2003, so more analysis can’t be done until it gets re-discovered. :o
I haven’t heard an alternative hypothesis, though… I try to imagine what else besides electrochemistry would one do with two dissimilar metals in an acid. It ruins the metals, it doesn’t make any known medicine or effective poison, it likely fouls the jug too… for a person to put copper and iron into a jug full of acid, there has to be a reason for doing it…
That all said, an attempted reproduction by Mythbusters, with ten of these jars, using lemon juice as the electrolyte, properly wired in series, did work, producing a voltage of about 4V. And prior to Mythbusters, various other researchers built similar reproductions using different electrolytes, which also produced a voltage. There is evidence to support that if the Baghdad Battery was produced properly, it would have worked as an electric power source.
No problem, just tell them to ask from Baghdad, they should know where it is. :) A jug of wine or vinegar, one electrode of iron, another made of copper, voila… the Baghdad battery.
I have nothing to add to this comment. I just want to make sure everyone knows that “the Baghdad battery” name goes fucking hard.
Any conclusive proof that this was used to produce electricity? Consensus seems to be that it wasn’t.
No conclusive proof. It didn’t have a passthrough for one electrode of the two. It did have remains of acid inside and corrosion on the electrodes. One can speculate whether it was an experimental device, a faulty device or something else entirely (one alchemist trying to replicate another’s secrets and doing it wrong?).
To add insult to the injury, it was lost or stolen during the war in 2003, so more analysis can’t be done until it gets re-discovered. :o
I haven’t heard an alternative hypothesis, though… I try to imagine what else besides electrochemistry would one do with two dissimilar metals in an acid. It ruins the metals, it doesn’t make any known medicine or effective poison, it likely fouls the jug too… for a person to put copper and iron into a jug full of acid, there has to be a reason for doing it…
That all said, an attempted reproduction by Mythbusters, with ten of these jars, using lemon juice as the electrolyte, properly wired in series, did work, producing a voltage of about 4V. And prior to Mythbusters, various other researchers built similar reproductions using different electrolytes, which also produced a voltage. There is evidence to support that if the Baghdad Battery was produced properly, it would have worked as an electric power source.