We Could Talk About The Weather

[n2ize]

The only other station I heard on the air during the 77 blackout was WINS on the AM band. I could only get WPLJ on FM. I was picking up Albany on AM though and an FM station from Briarcliff Manor in Westchester (WTFM ?), all during the day. Had to run across Manhattan (West St to Bowery) to my ex-girlfriends apartment in Chinatown then up 22 stories in the dark only to find out she didn't have any water. Down and up 22 again lugging 2 gallons of water this time.

On AM WCBS was up during the blackout. So was WNEW, WOR, WMCA, WEVD, WABC and most of the major AM players. I can't speak for the FM stations because I didn;t listen to any FM that night All the major AM transmitter sites have automatic backup generators. Even in the 65 blackout they were equipped with backup gens. When I was working at the WNEW transmitter site (which is now underwater in the Jersey swamps) we used to test the generator regularly. We would literally throw the main breakers to black out the station and within a few seconds you'd hear the generators starter crank and the generator start up and a few seconds later the lights, transmitter, etc. would come back up.

Yeah water was a problem. Even in buildings with water towers. When the tank is low the pumps don't operate and refill the tank.

[n2ize]

Your guess and that of just about every serious archeologist. Since the copper and iron were both completely covered by the asphalt sealant, it seems very unlikely that the thing was used as a battery. The most likely scenario is that they were used to store important documents and that the acidic residue found in the jars was probably decomposed papyrus.

That seems more likely. That and the fact that they had virtually no use for an electrochemical cell in those days.

[K7SGJ]

That seems more likely. That and the fact that they had virtually no use for an electrochemical cell in those days.

Not even to start their cars, or run their washer machines? Or what about their CB radios?

[N2NH]

Ahem.

Though most archaeologists agree the devices were batteries, there is much conjecture as to how they could have been discovered, and what they were used for.

How could ancient Persian science have grasped the principles of electricity and arrived at this knowledge?

Perhaps they did not. Many inventions are conceived before the underlying principles are properly understood.

The Chinese invented gunpowder long before the principles of combustion were deduced, and the rediscovery of old herbal medicines is now a common occurrence.

You do not always have to understand why something works - just that it does.

LINK

[n2ize]

Ahem

So what are the Baghdad Batteries?

They are simply clay vessels that housed copper cylinders. Such cylinders are known to have held papyrus scrolls.The majority of Archaeologists agree with this interpretation. I’m going to invoke Occam’s Razor and go with the the archaeology here, that supports the vessels as being scroll jars

Link Below

http://archyfantasies.wordpress.com/...ghdad-battery/

[NQ6U]

Ahem again:

Elizabeth Stone, Stony Brook University archaeologist and professor of archaeology, talked about her dig in Iraq, the first in 20 years. During the interview on NPR’s Science Friday she received a question from a caller asking about the battery. She replied that she didn’t know a single archaeologist who believed the Battery was a battery. Dr. Stone is considered an authority on Iraq archaeology, and if anyone knew anything about the Batteries, she would. Her null answer, speaks volumes on the topic.

http://archyfantasies.wordpress.com/...ghdad-battery/

[N2NH]

Two links from wordpress?

No offense but I'll stick with the BBC thank you very much.

[NQ6U]

The wordpress link, as you called it, referred to a statement made on NPR. Perhaps you should have read it?

[N2NH]

I saw that before you posted it. So she says. I can tell you with complete certainty that when it was discovered that the planets orbited the sun rather than the earth, every scientist could be quoted as saying Galileo was wrong. Same with the idea of plate tectonics when it was discovered by Alfred Wegener in the early 20th Century. In fact until the 1960s with the discovery of the mid-Atlantic rift, Plate Tectonics was debunked by scientists.

Pretty much where we are now. A bit from the Mythbusters episode on the Baghdad Battery.

[NQ6U]

I saw that Mythbusters episode when it first aired. The problem with it was that they didn't build the battery in the same way as the original, in which all the metal elements were entirely covered by ashphalt which, if the things actually were batteries, would have made it impossible to connect a load to them