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The Riddle of Baghdad's Battery
Jodrell writes "The BBC has an interesting article about a 2,200 year old battery discovered in Iraq in 1938. It is basically a clay pot containing a copper/iron core immersed in an electrolye solution (probably acidic vinegar). The article talks about how this priceless artifact as well as many others, from the same civilisation that invented writing and the wheel, could be threatened by the impending war."
It's not a battery! It's a chemical weapon! Call Hans Blix!
I don't think it was saying they were. What it was saying was that the same people who invented the wheel and writing also invented this battery.
"If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for everyone else."
was the big stone-carved vibrator that went with it...
Tired of being "punished" by the Slashdot $rtbl since 2002. I'm now over at http://soylentnews.org/ .
Subsequently, the defense department has changed Homeland Security status to Condition Copper, indicating a potentially shocking situation.
...when he invaded Kuwait in 1990 and his soldiers ransacked the museums:
r aq 1/000801a.htm
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/sanction/i
Tom
The Army reading list
Under the right circumstances, ordinary pieces of metal (like plumbing) exposed to acid can make "batteries" by chance. More intriguing is the "un batteried" iron obelisk I recall hearing about in India--an iron monument that has resisted rusting for hundreds of years.
I think it's likely that the ancients put some vinegar in this metal container, discovered that it corroded badly, and threw it away.
Of course we can't rule out that they knew something about electricity, but I think we need some clay tablets describing the use of electric devices to confirm it before we can say "ancient battery" with confidence.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Just because the Europeans hadn't heard of electricity doesn't mean it wasn't known elsewhere.
I can't say that I don't give a fuck. I've just run out of fuck to give.
They didn't say they were.
The article talks about how this priceless artifact as well as many others, from the same civilisation that invented writing and the wheel, could be threatened by the impending war.
They say specifically that the artifacts are in danger from the war, not the civilization. Nowhere do they imply that the civilization that created them is the same culture that inhabits Iraq now.
And the Greeks kept electric eels in big wading pools and would walk into the water and get zapped. It doesn't mean they knew what electricity was; they just knew it felt cool to get a mild shock.
I don't see how they can assume these are batteries when there is no evidence of wires or mechanical devices that would use the electricity.
A few months ago I saw something on the Discovery Channel talking about all of this. They found similar things (bowls/pots with acid in them) in South America too. They said all of these most likely were for magical purposes (cool shock or possibly even coating/electro-plating jewelry), but not batteries.
Karma: NaN
Did it confict with the European idea that they were the center of science and religion?
Actually, in a roundabout way, you are on the right track. One of the tenets of Orientalism is that Oriental cultures by definition are degenerate and in decline. Occidental cultures are, in contrast, always progressive, especially after the 14th Century CE. Occidental cultures are all European countries and their descendant cultures that are ruled by people who have European origins -- a notable exception being Slavs. So, the point is because this supposed technology rose from an Oriental culture it is either the product of interaction with ascendant Occidental culture or an anamoly. In either case, it must be erased. See Richard Perle and Wolfowitz for the contemporary personification of academics who think this way. It's called "the colonizer's model of the world."
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
No. Electricity was first described by ThalesofMiletus around 600 BCE. He polished amber with fur, to produce static electricity, and this is where we get the word 'electricity' from, from the greek word for Amber.
This is the first war ever fought in the region in the last 2,000 years? Were people concerned about artifacts when Iran and Iraq were blowing the crap out of each other? Were people concerned when Saddam was constructing enormous builings for his personal use?
Perspective... It's not just for breakfast anymore.
No sig, sorry.
Similarily, when the Taleban was destroying ancient Buddha's should this have been a reason to invade all by itself?
I hate how every news article has to somehow relate to the cause of the day ...
correct me if i am wrong but it wasnt until the 1700's that humans discovered electricity and began trying to control it and use it.
You are wrong, that's the whole point of the artifact.
Humans had discovered electricity long before, but the knowledge was lost and took thousands of years to be discovered again. They obviously never pushed the tech as far as its been in recent centuries (it took many a genious to get us where we are now), but they had the basis for it...and it somehow got lost.
Now, if archeologist were allowed to dig up a bit more without Dubya bombing everything into oblivion, maybe we would learn much more about how advance early civilisations got.
BTW, your comment reeks of occident-centricism (just made that word up). The way you just assume that nobody could have thought of making a battery before Mr Volta...disgusting. Oh, and I guess aliens had to help the mayas build pyramids huh? 'cause those brown skinned savages could never be that smart...
Sigh
You can't take the sky from me...
Invading, during which time the facilities will most likely be destroyed, plus the cost of war and the problems it will generate in the world oil market will drive oil costs up for a long time. And that is without the additional affects of a possible Arab oil embargo to protest the war.
So, in conclusion, the war is not a good way to get the oil. Presumably, an oil man would know that. Why then, is he still pushing for war? Maybe because it's not about the oil?
Here: http://www.policyreview.org/summer93/cheney.html
Excerpting:
Policy Review: It is now two years after the spectacular victory of the United States and its allies in Desert Storm. What objectives were achieved during this war?
Cheney: The best way to evaluate Desert Storm is to consider what the world would be like today if we hadn't fought and won this war. If we had taken a pass on Saddam's occupation of Kuwait, by today he would have the eastern province of Saudi Arabia and would sit astride about 50 percent of the world's oil reserves, which he could control directly when you add up Kuwaiti, Saudi, and Iraqi oil reserves. He'd be able to dominate the rest of the reserves in the Persian Gulf. And he'd have nuclear weapons. We had to stop this from happening. And we did.
--
Notice how the nukes are clearly a secondary consideration.
--
P.R.: You got out of Iraq without going all the way to Baghdad. Are you worried that Saddam Hussein is still in power today?
Cheney: I'd rather he were not in power, but I don't see him at this point as a threat to any of his neighbors. In that part of the world, I'm more concerned about Iran. Saddam is unable to sell oil; without selling oil, he can't generate the revenue he needs to rebuild that military machine we destroyed. The Iranians aren't faced with that situation; they have access to the world's markets, they are selling oil, and they are using some of that revenue to regenerate their forces and expand their capabilities. For example, they're buying diesel-powered submarines and MiG-29s from the Russians.
--
Nah, can't be about the oil.
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
could very well do the same thing the Taliban did in Afghanistan
All brown people look alike huh?
Iraq and Afghanistan are NOT THE SAME THING!
As evil and dangerous as Saddam is, he is not a taliban, and in fact Iraq was on the Taliban's list of not-nice-places. Iraq is a modern country (kinda), where women can go to school and work and show their faces in public. Saddam has founded a lot of archeological digs, he even had replicas built of the excavated sites so that the people could go look at their countrie's past glory without damaging the originals.
Try to get this in your head: Saddam and Oussama are NOT THE SAME PERSON, they don't agree on anything except that they both resent the US.
You can't take the sky from me...
and those people we would call weak-willed moral relativists.
Thank you for the name calling.
There are some of us, thank you very much, who oppose the war on ideological grounds. Some of us believe that the function of the U.S. military should be to defend the citizens of the U.S., not to run around the world "installing" democracies. We should lead by example, not by force.
Unless, of course, you believe that Saddam only poses a threat to his own people, so why should we care?
Um, you really think that Saddam poses a threat to the U.S.? I've followed the administration's incredibly weak attempts to convince us that he does, but I still don't see it.
I don't believe for one second that this is primarily about oil, but it certainly isn't about the national security of the U.S.
Will they happen by selling Harpoon missiles and anthrax bacteria to Saddam Hussein, like Rumsfeld did when he was Reagan's special envoy to the middle east?
Under the right circumstances, ordinary pieces of metal (like plumbing) exposed to acid can make "batteries" by chance. More intriguing is the "un batteried" iron obelisk I recall hearing about in India--an iron monument that has resisted rusting for hundreds of years.
... the secret seems to have died with the makers.
That is very interesting in its own right. However,
I think it's likely that the ancients put some vinegar in this metal container, discovered that it corroded badly, and threw it away.
They've found at least 12 such primative batteries, so unless they were throwing away a bunch of defecting jars that all mysteriously resembled batteries far more closely than simple storage jugs, I think the idea that they suffered a little accidental corrosion and threw it away is rather unlikely.
Virtually everyone believes these were primitive batteries, and used as such, but not to drive bronze age equivelent walkmans or the like. Rather, some believe it may have been to imbibe idols with magical "shocking" capabilities to lend credence to local religious cults, an invention that occurred likely by accident, reproduced by trial and error, and then applied (secretively) by the priests of Baal (or whatever cult was popular at the time) as a way to convice people of the divinity of their statue.
That they were batteries designed to deliver a low amperage, fairly low voltage electrical current is pretty widely accepted. Why they were made, and what they were used for, is really anybody's guess at this point
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
They way to make gas prices go down would be to declare that Iraq is indeed disarming and allow them to resume oil exports. This is the fastest, cheapest way to get the oil.
Wrong. This is the fastest way to reduce oil prices somewhat. It does nothing to gain control of the oil, which is the point that the "no war for oil" people are trying to get across.
The head of the INC, who hasn't been in Iraq since 1956, is already talking with US oil companies for access to the oil fields after the war. Cheney and Bush are oil barons. If the price of oil goes up, their friends and families benefit, since most people will pay through the nose anyway. If the price drops after the war, even better; the oil families will still rake in the cash, and the OPEC dictatorships will see their own economic base weakened by a drop in prices. Either way, the situation is win-win for certain powerful people and organizations. Western life is tied to oil as a common, essential resource. It is the source of our fuel and some of our most common materials.
Oil may not be the only factor, but it is a factor. However, to believe that anyone currently running the show in Washington is seriously concerned about the lives of Iraqis is pure naivete. Quite a few of the people currently in power helped support Saddam's war machine during the Iran-Iraq war, looked the other way while both sides used chemical weapons, didn't make a noise about his development of chemical and biological weapons (may have quietly helped, in fact) and didn't give a rat's patoot about the megalomaniac until he invaded the wrong country. Invading Iran was fine. It's not enough to say Bush I wasn't president for the Iran-Iraq war and thus Saddam's actions then weren't his problem, as he was vice-president during that period.
One only need look at that infamous picture of Donald Rumsfeld shaking Saddam's hand to know where freedom and human rights rank compared to political expediency in the minds of the cabal currently running the US.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
Israel ? And what was Donald "lets invade" Rumsfelds job during the 80s... err selling chemicals to Sadam.
We know, beyond any reasonable doubt that the US has helped Israel get WMD, we also know its sold them to Britain as well.
So there are two official cases where it has happened. And officially the US and Britain supplied billions of dollars of arms equipment to Iraq during the Iran v Iraq war.
What else do we know
1) CIA trained Bin Laden and many people in Afghanistan against the USSR, many of these became the Taliban.
2) The US supplied weapons to terrorists in the Iran/Contra scandal.
So yes, apart from these cases and lots more there is no evidence at all to say that the US has potentially the dirtiest hands on the block.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
It is bizarre reading these posts and seeing people quote as fact the propaganda of the American government and media.
What is truely bizarre is that you manage to write so much, but give no examples of this propaganda. While I agree with you that the American media has a tendancy not to question statements by American leadership, this post is another example of ignorance (and arrogance?) toward American media and Americans in general.
The real tragedy here is that many Europeans truely believe that America is a country filled with mindless drones who believe everything they read and that everything they read is a lie. This is simply not true.
Many Americans have differing beliefs, and many (american) media outlets do reflect this heterogenecity. Examples include the 100,000+ people that marched in San Francisco against military action in Iraq. Or last night, Dan Rather's interview with Saddam Hussein. Do you think the Bush administration wanted that aired? Many newspapers have written in editorial pages reservations about the Bush administration stance. Ignorance is everywhere, and perhaps that smell is coming from your own back yard and not your short wave radio...
-Sean