'Chrono Cell'!
Relativity powers car battery!
Scientists found that 80-85% of the voltage of a lead-acid battery is due to relativistic effects
The physicists and chemists who performed the study Rajeev Ahuja, Andreas Blomqvist, and Peter Larsson from Uppsala University in Uppsala, Sweden, and Pekka Pyykkö and Patryk Zaleski-Ejgierd from the University of Helsinki have published their results in a recent issue of Physical Review Letters. "This is a new, well-documented case of 'everyday relativity,'" Pyykkö toldPhysOrg.com. As the scientists noted in their study, the finding essentially means that "cars start due to relativity." The lead-acid battery is the oldest type of rechargeable battery, with the main component being lead. With an atomic number of 82, lead is a heavy element. In general, relativistic effects emerge when fast electrons move near a heavy nucleus, such as that of lead. These relativistic effects include anything that depends on the speed of light (or from a mathematical perspective, anything that involves the Dirac or Schrödinger equations). The lead-acid battery contains a positive electrode made of lead dioxide, a negative electrode made of metallic lead, and an electrolyte made of sulfuric acid. Through their calculations, the scientists found that the battery's relativistic effects arise mainly from the lead dioxide in the positive electrode, and partly from the lead sulfate created during chemical reactions. .
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