Batteries

First Mention: 1800 (possible early ADs)

Use: Portable energy source

Batteries can be found almost everywhere, from powering our portable devices, to maintaining technical equipment and machinery running; batteries come in all forms, shapes, and sizes. Yet it may come as a shock to some when they find out just how far back people have been utilizing these pockets of fuel.

Up till this day the actual origin of the battery is still under debate, but archeological finds have discovered jars which appear to have acted the role of a battery in antiquity. The find is called the Baghdad battery, after its place of discovery, and was built during the Iranian dynasties of Parthian or Sassanid in the Mesopotamian region. The purpose of this item is still unknown, but it certainly looks like something which can be easily integrated into a Flintstones-like world.

But let us focus on the modern day battery, whose origins are believed to reside with an Italian inventor by the name of Alessandro Volta in 1800. The battery was called the Voltaic battery and probably inspired by the works of anatomist Luigi Galvani in 1786 who noticed a dissected frogs legs would twitch during lightning storms. Galvani was fascinated by this and worked on inducing the twitch in the dead frog’s leg without the presence of any external electric sources. He eventually made a circuit consisting of a dead frog’s leg and two different metals. When they all came into contact the frog’s legs would begin twitching. This system was called the Galvanic Cell.

Hearing of this Volta started doing his own experiments with dead frogs and metals and soon realized that cardboard soaked in salt water was a suitable substitute for the frog’s moist tissues and the frog’s muscular responses could be substituted by another form of electrical detection. Volta then was able to spot an electric current in this system and soon developed the battery which consisted of numerous Voltaic Cells – Volta’s modified Galvanic Cell.

It was not for a long time until batteries became portable or even usable. However, Benjamin Franklin is credited with coining the term “battery” since he was referring to an arrangement of multiple Leyden jars and wanted to make the metaphor to a battery of cannons on a ship.

Unfortunately multiple frogs were harmed in the making of the battery. But our world is completely transformed thanks to it and now we have just as many Duracell bunnies running around to make up for all the lost frogs.