Short video spoiler history: The beginning of modern warfare

Chapter 79 Battery
During the Hongwu period, Jinling City.

Generals Xu Da, Deng Yu, Li Wenzhong and others looked at the description in the comment section of the sky curtain with extremely exciting expressions on their faces.

"Does this meteorological weapon have any practical application? What specific types are there?" Xu Da was a little short of breath. The comments section mentioned ball lightning and the Legend of the Seven Heroes. These should be works like novels. What about in reality?
To be able to come up with this concept, it should be said that there must have been research done. To what extent has the research progress been done?

This kind of weapon, like biological and chemical weapons, is really beyond people's conventional thinking. Even tornadoes and typhoons can be used as weapons?
No one can answer this question again, but put yourself in their shoes, no army is willing to fight a typhoon.

"The characteristics of this weapon are its wide range and unconcentrated lethality. It is not used against the army." Zhu Yuanzhang tried to analyze it and summarized the characteristics of this weapon in just two sentences.

The army is quite mobile, and with such a long brewing time for such weapons, the troops would have retreated long ago.

Xu Da and others also agreed with this view. There is no doubt that it was obviously used to deal with civilians.
The army can run away, but the land cannot run away, the city cannot run away, and the people in the city cannot run away either.
So cruel!

Zhu Yuanzhang also discovered that with the development of science, various weapons that could be called miracles also developed.
To this day, nothing is known about the weapons in the arsenal of later generations.

When Zhu Yuanzhang thought of this, he felt a little excited. He could do without this thing, but he couldn't live without it.
[The symbol of the Second Industrial Revolution is the discovery and popularization of electricity, which is still prevalent in our lives today. Among them, portable batteries are particularly important. They get rid of the constraints of wires and bring unimaginable convenience.]

[All kinds of electrical appliances, such as new energy vehicles, mobile phones, tablets, laptops, portable fans, electric cars, etc., can be freed from the constraints of wires thanks to the invention of batteries 200 years ago.]

[The structure of the battery is extremely simple. There is a metal core block on the left and a metal copper block on the right. Paper soaked in salt water is sandwiched in the middle to generate electricity and light up the light bulb.]

[Observe the electric current carefully. The electrons in the zinc block are constantly moving to the copper block. What energy makes the electrons move in a certain direction?]

[We zoom in on the zinc block. This is a zinc atom. The nucleus in the middle carries 30 positive charges, and there are 30 negatively charged electrons outside.]

[At this time, the number of positive and negative charges is equal, maintaining electrical neutrality. The two outermost electrons are very active and tend to break away from the constraints of the nucleus and fly out.]

[If there is a positive electric field outside at this time, according to the principle that like charges repel and opposite charges attract, this negatively charged electron can be easily attracted out.]

[Suppose we find another element that is opposite to zinc. Its characteristic is that it is very eager to get electrons. That is, the electrons on the left want to fly away very much, and the electrons on the right also want to get electrons very much. If they are directly connected, can the directional movement of electrons be achieved, thereby generating current? ]

During the Hongwu period, Jinling City.

A group of clerks buried their heads in writing.

Electricity is something that everyone is very familiar with nowadays. However, if we want to achieve the same as in the future and get rid of the constraints of electric wires, we really have no idea.

The imperial court also brainstormed on this issue, and after much thought, they could only think of one solution, which was to embed the generator into various objects. Otherwise, there was really no way to solve this problem.

After all, electricity is not generated out of thin air in wires.

Now, when it comes to another way of generating electricity, even Zhu Yuanzhang is a little confused: "Is it that simple?"

"Two different metal rods and a piece of paper soaked in saline?"

"I know copper, but what is zinc?" Sun Chuanshi from the Science Department scratched his head, feeling a little depressed. Too many metals in later generations might be problems with the names, or they might be newly discovered metals. In short, sometimes even if the principles were known, they could not be reproduced.

It's like having a treasure chest but no key, which is exactly the situation now.

"It doesn't necessarily have to be zinc. We can use copper on one side and other metals on the other side and keep trying!" Zhu Biao suggested.

"Good idea!" The people in the Science Department's eyes lit up. This was the idea of ​​​​previous attempts to use other metal wires instead of nickel to make light bulbs.

"Zinc and copper are both elements in the periodic table. Is this zinc atom the smallest unit of zinc? Is it divided into a nucleus and electrons?"

The content of this part was so much and so complicated that everyone was confused. There were too many questions they wanted to ask but no one could answer them.

After all, no one dares to say that his understanding is correct, and once his understanding is wrong, it is likely to lead others astray.

Liu Ji didn't quite understand the new knowledge, but after pondering it over and over again in his mind, he had some understanding. That is, under normal circumstances, atoms tend to show electrical neutrality, and the current generated in this way should be different from the principle of power generation by a generator.

Just like rockets, airplanes and hot air balloons, the principles of take-off are different.

[Actually, no, let’s look at the zinc element directly. For ease of understanding, I only show the outermost layer, where two electrons match two positive charges.]

[When the first electron is attracted and leaves, the positive charge is greater than the negative charge, so the inside of the nucleus will be positively charged. The remaining positively charged part is called a positive ion. When the second electron wants to leave the positive ion, the positively charged nucleus will attract it to prevent it from leaving.]

[The solution is to soak in salt water. When the electrons of the zinc element leave, the remaining positively charged ions will merge into the salt water, and the whole thing will still remain electrically neutral.]

[As long as the transmission continues, the electrons will continue to throw out ions and merge into the salt water. The electrons will move in a certain direction and an electric current will be formed.] [This step is not over yet. The elements on the other side will also form negative ions with negative charges when they get electrons, which will repel the electrons from entering.]

[Here we use the element copper, which has similar properties to zinc and also wants to get rid of electrons, but copper abandons electrons to a lesser extent than zinc]

[Putting these two elements together can also achieve directional movement of electrons. When zinc's electrons enter the copper element, the extra electrons will dissolve into the salt water and turn into gas, while the copper still remains electrically neutral.]

[The whole process is that zinc electrons are constantly thrown out, while zinc positive ions dissolve into salt water. On the other side, the electrons received by copper dissolve into salt water to form gas. The electrons in the wire are constantly moving in a directional manner, which means that current is formed and the light bulb lights up.]

During the Zhenguan period, Chang'an City.

Sometimes atoms, sometimes electrons, sometimes ions. Why must the positive charge and the electrons be equal?
Questions lingered in his mind one after another, and Cheng Yaojin felt as if he was listening to a divine book. Why the hell is it so difficult???
"I finally understand why students in later generations hate studying," Yuchi Jingde felt the same way.

Li Shimin thought about it and realized that the purpose of soaking the two metal rods in salt water was to solve the problem that electrons could not break free from the positive ions, but Tianmu did not mention why the salt solution could solve this problem.

"According to Tianmu, the zinc block is made up of atoms. When atoms lose electrons, they become positive ions. The positive ions will dissolve into the salt solution. Then, can the last zinc atom continue to generate current after losing its electrons?" Fang Xuanling thought for a moment and immediately grasped the most important point.

"Should." Wei Zheng and the others were about to say yes in their hearts, but then they thought something was wrong. Obviously, there was something wrong.

"Could it be that the zinc is gone after a while of use?"

Li Shimin was also a little surprised, but then he thought, isn't this the same as a magnet that generates electricity losing its magnetism?

[Zinc, a metal, was called white lead, white water lead, water tin, and Japanese lead in ancient times. The reason why it is called lead is that lead and zinc have similar outer electron structures, both have strong sulfur affinity, and are easy to co-exist to form lead-zinc ores.]

[And zinc batteries have a fatal flaw, that is, they are disposable batteries. The zinc block disappears after the reaction is completed, so the actual application cost is extremely high and not suitable for promotion.]

[Is there a rechargeable battery that can be reused? Yes, there is, and that is another metal in lead-zinc ore, lead.]

[Put two pieces of lead in a sulfuric acid solution and pass electricity through it. It is found that one piece will oxidize into lead dioxide, and the other piece will become sponge-like lead. At this time, there is a huge potential difference between the two pieces of lead, and electrons can move in a certain direction.]

[The most amazing thing is that after the electrons have run away, that is, the electricity has been released, the two pieces of lead will return to their original state. By using this feature, we can charge and discharge it repeatedly to achieve the reuse of the battery.]

[Although lead-acid batteries can be charged and discharged in cycles, their disadvantage is that they are too large. The main reason is that their atoms can release too few electrons each time, only 4.]

[On this basis, scientists later found a more suitable material than lead, that is lithium. The battery made of lithium is the famous lithium battery.]

During the Hongwu period, Jinling City.

The video ends here and starts playing again.

"An Qing, I remember that this white lead is used to make brass, right?" Zhu Yuanzhang had a good memory and thought of this at this moment.

Brass (also known as copper-zinc alloy) has a wide range of uses, including coinage, palace carriages, clothing, ceremonial utensils, etc. An Ran naturally knew this.

"That's true. Your Majesty's extensive knowledge and memory are admirable." These words were not entirely flattery.

Zhu Yuanzhang nodded and ordered the Ministry of Industry to provide lead and zinc materials to the Ministry of Science for experiments as soon as possible.

At present, the Ministry of Science has not developed any equipment that can use electricity, but hydropower can always generate electricity, and this part of electricity can be stored in lead-acid batteries. Zhu Yuanzhang made such arrangements in his mind.

An Ran naturally didn't know what he was thinking, and it wasn't a big deal, so she agreed.

"I have never understood how a battery with only a carbon rod inside generates electricity, and how the electricity is put in"

《In fact, it is not to inject energy into it, but to drive the electrons to the other side. It will form a high side and a low side. Due to the potential difference, the electrons will move spontaneously.》

《Also why when there is no electricity, you can just bite it with your teeth and it will be back on》

《Distance creates resistance! If the resistance is large, you can't run over it. If you hold on tight, the resistance is small and you can run over it.》

"Can you explain the charging principle? The higher the voltage, the faster the battery can be charged. It is also dangerous. What kind of battery can accept a higher voltage? Will charging be faster than refueling in the future?"

The main bottleneck is the materials. Currently, no more suitable materials have been found to achieve faster charging than refueling.

Zhu Yuanzhang couldn't understand many of them, so he just asked people to write them down first.

(End of this chapter)