Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] nuclear psub? (fruity goodness)

[David Buchner <buchner@wcta.net>]

On Monday, Jan 6, 2003, at 13:59 US/Central, Warrend Greenway wrote:

> Were the probes dissimilar metals? I made a sea-water battery before,
> using plates that were arranged like gills that the brine flowed
> through. Worked great. Only problem is that the elecrton migration 
> consumes
> the plates and in the end it is more expensive then standard batteries!

Hm, I'm not sure I recall (vodka, you know).

It's quite possible I thought of that, and used, like, copper wire for 
one and galvanized steel for the other -- or something like that. Does 
it matter so much *which* metals? Come to think of it, is that what 
determines which one is positive and which negative? How? I remember 
thinking that was pretty cool when I hooked up the voltmeter and was 
able to tell which side was which, anyway!

Good fun, but not very practical. What did they use for electrolyte in 
the old Edison batteries, back when everybody in rural areas had 
batteries in their basement? (Now, I'm the last one...)


David
buchner@wcta.net
Osage, MN, USA
http://customer.wcta.net/buchner