The Battery That's Lasted 176 Years 

With a shirt like that, it's like tom never left.

Wouldn't it be brilliant if it turned out that it was just the vibrations of a fridge behind that wall causing the bell to ring?

Thank you Sally for not ruining the Tom Scott experience by wearing a red shirt. My immersion was not ruined

this gal: batteries can last over 100 years apple: think different

Jesus christ, this is literally just a female Tom Scott

1:46 "And it still works!" That made it sounds like it was a bug that the developers haven't fixed yet.

"Every time a bell rings, an angel gets it's wings." Oh, goodness heaven must be overflowing.

Very neat. But, all this and we don't get to hear the bell...

This is a clear cut case of TTT or "Time Travelling Trolls". The bell contains ultra long lasting battery technology from the future. It won't stop ringing until the technology for the battery and time travel are discovered. The company will arrange to go back in time to create this electric bell as an elaborate advertisement for the battery in the future.

I found an old physics textbook, the 1892 edition of 'Elementary Lessons on Electricity and Magnetism' by Silvanus Thompson (S.P. Thompson). On pages 149 & 150 it mentions that the Clarendon laboratory bell powered by a Zamboni dry pile had been running for over forty years.

Guy made a bell that never stops. Must've been very popular at the departement.

I once got a novelty advert in the mail around 2000 with a flashing LED, I ripped off the carboard and put the LED and battery holder in my junk drawer. I totally forgot about it. Years later when the power went out from a storm I looked over and saw that the drawer was glowing red. Sure enough that led was going constantly for over 10 years.

Just to quickly say thank you for the amazingly positive response (and/or thank you to those who are moderating the comments)! It's always scary being on someone else's channel, particularly with a large audience, but you've made me feel very welcome :) (And yes, the red T-shirt was deliberate, although this was sadly the closest shade of red I could find)

The energizer bunny must be pissed.

"They don’t make 'em like they used to"

They should build the batteries of what they think is inside them and use it to power a LED or something. See how long it lasts.

So help me God, *if the rest of these guest presenters don't also wear red shirts*... Also, you shouldn't dissolve people in soda; regardless of whether they have teeth or not.

I need a battery like this in my phone.

Nintendo DS's batteries: *Laughs in infinity*

“How long will these batteries last? Well no one really knows” *bells stop ringing*

When I saw the thumbnail I genuinely thought, "Cool, Tom has pink hair now."

**leaves 3DS closed with the WIFI turned off** I can break that record.

I sometimes wish the scientists that create these marvels can see their work hundreds of years later.

Although the battery is really impressive. Making a bell ring for 178 years is about the best way to drive your friends mad, for generations to come.

I've donned the red T-shirt while Tom's in the Arctic to tell you something you might not know about batteries. I make other videos on science (normally biology), so if that's your kind of thing, why not pop round?!

The reason why this battery lasted this long is the very low current. 176 years x 365 days x 24 hours x 1 nanoamp = 1.54 milliampere-hours - that's nearly nothing. A modern phone battery (3 ampere-hours) would run over 342,000 years if the current consumption was only this low. But what really is remarkable is that this battery seems to have very little self-discharge. The alkaline batteries I bought the other day have an expiration date of 2021. Then their capacity is only at 80% even if they've never been used. That makes a self-discharge current of already 13.7 microamps - Though this capacity might even be sufficient to deliver an extra 1 nanoamp for a bell for several years.

Didn't knew that Nokia makes batteries.

“I’m off to the Arctic for 3 weeks…” I tried that excuse with my last boss. Didn‘t work.

"I'm off to the Arctic for three weeks, and while I'm gone, some guest presenters are gonna be taking over this channel." OK Tom, I got the hint. Calling the police now.

Awesome job, Sally! Glad Tom could do this for us to help get our voices out there! Excited to see the other guest videos up!

@3:00 "each time the bell rings the clapper takes a tiny 1 nanoamp of current" So the average current output is less than a nanoamp.

My battery during a road trip: *runs out immediately* My battery at the evening when I need to charge it while sleeping:

What's it's SCP number?

This sounds like a premise for a sci-fi movie... Time travelers who had far superior batteries, going back to the past, only to accidently reveal the formula/technique to a person from the past. And then to "fix the timeline", they decide that rather than "simply" giving it out, they'd go overboard by actually making this battery. And intentionally make it run for so long, that by the time it runs out and people cut it open, they would have already figured out the long batteries and time travel by other means, thus letting history proceed as normal.

The touch of her wearing a red T-Shirt made my day

Thank you for the time and effort you put into your video, I enjoyed it, thumbs up.

1) The bell draws 1nA of current from the 2kV battery. Power consumption is 2μW 2) It's been running for 176 years so about 1542816 hours. 3) We know that the battery contains at least 1542816*0.000002=3.085632Wh of energy. Pretty comparable to our modern day AA alkaline battery of 2000mAh.

Aww man, Sally La Page is a great lady! She's the resident science lady on the RT Podcast, and she's loved over there, and now she's on Tom's channel? SHE'S SO GOOD!

"We have someone with some teeth dissolving in some soda." Well, we ought to get that person out, then! ...Oh, you meant- oh.

plot twist: it is generating power from the ringing and will never run out

Woo! Well done Sally - and thanks Tom for providing us with this opportunity! :)

Im guessing all presenters are required to wear red tshirts ?

Sally, good job on the narration. Your style is personable, and you make the topic quite interesting, while keeping it 'human' as well.

I had always thought Leyden jars were the oldest batteries, but I guess they were really capacitors. I was actually thinking of Bagdad batteries, which could have been electrochemical batteries, but they are a couple thousand years old and are there is no confirmation that they really were used for electricity production. It is interesting to consider it though.

Good work guys! Meanwhile my phone battery would last less than 176 minutes :l

I had a CVS battery like this that lasted for about 20 years. It was inside this cheap chinese calculator clock that ran all the time. Terrifying.

Very interesting, actually very amazing! I understand there is a lightbulb in an old firehouse in Livermore, Ca. that has been burning for 120 years (sense 1901), and that seemed amazing.

What an amazing presenter, thank you. Subscribed to Sally's Channel! :)

Never before had I seen an electrostatic bell running on a battery, that helps explain why it has lasted so long. The bell has such a high impedance, it's basically an open circuit at all times. Perhaps the amount of power inn these batteries is not that impressive, but should these batteries never have been connected to the bells, their shelf life would be outstandingly long. A regular battery in such a setting would likely not run out of power for a long time, but almost certain, it would otherwise decay before all of it's chemical energy has been released. It would get oxidized, it would corrode itself, and all that crap that you can see in any old battery that you can find lying around. Thus imo the most impressive thing about this setup is that the battery has not decayed over time, rather than it not running out of power.

I like her. Can we Keep her?

I love how every prelude the the videos where he’s gone it sounds like he’s a parent talking to his kids and telling us to behave

It would be good to actually hear the bell.

Ahhhh I just met Sally Le Page at the weekend. She's brilliant.

Hey I remember Sally from the RT podcast. She's great!

I didn't know going on a random binge of this chanmel because i have found tom kinda makes videos of things my mind has wondered about and getting something from sally who i learnt from rooster teeth would make my day

Can't you make a tomography of the battery so you don't have to break it?

The days before planned obsolescence?

They had cardboard in 1800?

Amazing!! Love this!

She’s bloody amazing. I have learned so much.

I think Tom has picked well. Hopefully the others are of as high quality. I'm going to check out Sally's channel now.

*Ada Lovelace is the correct spelling btw!

"We don't know what's inside it, but it's probably this" - that sounds like a challenge for a reading in experimental philosophy.

Sally is delightful!

I've been in Oxford 3 days ago, now I feel really cool. The lesson I followed was about how bacteria moved inside liquids and it was pretty interesting.

This battery has lasted for 176 years and yet the battery in my iPhone still can't get through a full day...

Now I want a video of the longest lasting lightbulb that has been active for over 100 years in one firestation

Thank you, that was amazing history. I love the battery.

Perhaps the bell was very resonant, I seen similar production line electric motors show huge differences in efficiency, when taken apart and struck with a small hammer the inefficient ones ring for a few seconds while the efficient ones ring for ages.

Imagine how funny it would've been had the battery died mid-filming. :P

I, like everyone else, clicked on this because of the fresh breath of air and ray of sunshine smiling face on the thumb nail. Thump! Thump!

thanks for the suggestion NSA. I really like the science videos you suggested for me. Its very informative.

Sally's shirt is the wrong shade of red, this is clearly unacceptably off-brand dislike uncomment unsubscribed / 10.

Sally is fantastic!

This channel is getting me through quarantine

SALLY! Good start to the guests.

arctic tom time. arctom.

Salley Le Page! I love her!! Great job Sally!

I enjoyed that thank you Sally

Well, it definitely lasts longer than the battery in my cell phone :) Judging from the description it almost sounds a solid state battery. A battery that many firms are working as it has many advantages over our current lithium ion batteries which use a liquid electrolyte. Something that also makes them highly flammable if the separator is somehow breached. Something that makes fires in EVs very hard to put out once the thermal runaway process has started. They can also reignite even if the initial fire has been put out which is why some fire department put EV wrecks in large containers filled with water. It is very interesting to see that this old battery seems to already incorporate technology that we are now trying to reinvent.

I feel like the teacher's gone on holiday and we got a sub. Lets riot!

I was really excited to subscribe Sally's channel than I saw that her avg video length is 20 minute...

that was great, thanks lady Tom!

Wow! Fascinating! And beautifully presented! ... ... ... Tom may be inadvertently auditioning his replacement!

Hey Tom, speaking of the Arctic (or more specifically, the Antarctic), you should do a video on what time zones do at their convergence points.

Scott of the arctic.

Fascinating!

Would love to see more Sally collaborations!

Congrats on your transition, Tom ;) But for real, this is a great video

Tom just asked the internet of the impossible.

Definitely should open and find out how it works while it still does!!!

1840s: a battery lasting 3-4 years was considered "very transient" 2021: we're lucky if our phone's battery lasts longer than 15 hours.

To be honest, this battery does not have any practical use in its current state. And since we cannot know its exact inner workings just because examination would be destructive... I'd say we'd gain more than we'd lose if we dismantled it.

Can I use it to play pokémon go please?

Omg bring back Sally

USA has a firefighter light bulb th hat hasn't gone out for 118+ years

So, someone invented the best battery in the world, and now one knows how it works because no one wants to cut it open.... So we are stuck using batteries that last a few days/hours.....

You're like a teacher telling us to be nice to a guest. You know that's not gonna happen.

If rewatched this video so many times because of Sally

The answer is quite like a riddle really. Everytime the pendulum makes contact with the bell, that very subtle contact an vibration sends just enough enery back into the dry pile, so it will never run out of enery. The dry pile battery will never run out.