Scientists helped reimagine a forgotten battery design from Thomas Edison

Is there anything that Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) has not invented? 😊 Just kidding!

"Key takeaways

• An international research collaboration co-led by UCLA has developed a nickel-iron battery, reviving a chemistry favored by Thomas Edison.
• In the study, the team grew extremely tiny clusters of metal using proteins, then embedded them in an ultrathin carbon-based conductor to make electrodes.
• The resulting battery charged in seconds and kept working after more than 12,000 cycles of draining and recharging, suggesting a potential application in storing renewable energy. 

A little-known fact: In the year 1900, electric cars outnumbered gas-powered ones on the American road. 

The lead-acid auto battery of the time, courtesy of Thomas Edison, was expensive and had a range of only about 30 miles. Seeking to improve on this, Edison believed the nickel-iron battery was the future, with the promise of a 100-mile range, a long life and a recharge time of seven hours, fast for that era. 

Alas, that promise never reached fruition. Early electric car batteries still suffered from serious limitations, and advances in the internal combustion engine won the day. ..."

Thomas Edison’s ‘battery of the future’ reimagined | UCLA

Thomas Edison: Lighting Up the World | Lucasfilm

Recommendable!

Grim Old Days: Jane Brox’s Evolution of Artificial Light

Very recommendable! What were our ancestors struggling with! Ingratitude is the reward of the world!

"... The portion of the book devoted to the preindustrial era shines a light on just how dark—in the literal sense of the word—the past was. ...

Indeed, “before the seventeenth century, street lighting was almost nonexistent everywhere in the world. . . . Renaissance Florence had no streetlights, nor did imperial Rome.” Brox quotes historian Jérôme Carcopino describing nightfall in Ancient Rome: “Night fell over the city like the shadow of a great danger. Everyone fled to his home, shut himself in, and barricaded the entrance. The shops fell silent, safety chains were drawn across . . . the doors.” Centuries later, little had changed. In early modern Europe, “Almost everyone gladly left the streets to the thieves, the scurrying of rodents, and the lingering smells of the day—rotting food, old straw, and horses’ dung.” ..."

Grim Old Days: Jane Brox’s Evolution of Artificial Light "The next time you flick a light switch and flood a room with light, reflect on the unsteady glow of tallow candles that once illuminated the world."

This Place in History: Thomas Davenport, inventor of the electric motor

Recommendable!

The Invention Of The Telephone Or Why Patents Are Bad

Posted: 8/1/2018

Introduction

I have written several posts regarding intellectual property rights (see bottom of post) and why they really are not a good idea. Intellectual property rights e.g. should be entirely abolished or considerably shortened!

How Many Roughly Simultaneous Inventors?

Today, I came across this article The Game of Telephone That Became a Battle History books may credit him as the sole inventor of the modern device, but Alexander Graham Bell was only part of the story that mentions Elisha Gray and an Italian named Antonio Meucci.

Since I was born and grew up in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, we celebrate yet another inventor of the telephone, our Philipp Reis. According to this Wikipedia article about Reis, there were perhaps even others planning to or inventing the telephone.

There is no need to go into the details of each of these telephone inventors for the purpose of this blog post.

Something Was In The Air

What is clear is that around 1850-80 it was imminent that something like a telephone would be invented. So it happened that perhaps as many as half a dozen inventors in three or four different countries developed a telephone within this period of time.

Only because one of them (i.e. Graham Bell) was very clever, if not worse, faster to the patent office, and a better businessman than perhaps the other co inventors, one man and his company were awarded with the patent …

Conclusion

The invention of the telephone is probably one of the best examples why intellectual property rights are actually harmful to humanity. More competition would certainly be better for technical and human progress!

My Previous, Related Blog Posts

1. Pastiche In Classical Music
2. Abolish Copyrights
3. Intellectual Property Rights Are Not Exclusive
4. Was Amadeus Mozart A Plagiarizer?
5. Challenging Innovation Is Expensive, Imitation Is Cheap, And Exclusion Is Difficult
6. Urgent Reform Of Copyrights
7. What Is Wrong With Intellectual Property Rights?