In one of the previous posts there was a mention about combining rechargeable batteries with capacitors so that the capacitors could be quickly charged so then they could take the appropriate time to charge up the batteries without having the unit connected to the mains for the whole time. An extension of that idea is to investige the possibility of shaping the capacitors for a battery as a layer of the battery casing. Normally capacitors are found as standalone units with the plates rolled up into a compact bundle. The pair of plates could still have a large surface area if they were flattened out and incorporated into the battery casing with maybe more than one layer around the battery. The shape and size of the battery/capacitor unit could be set up so that the capacities of both match the other. The battery/capacitor units could then be stacked into banks depending on the energy needs. These batteries would need some controlling circuitry so they would not be as simple as current batteries. But you would have the advantage of being able to charge these units up very quickly while also using them to store energy.
Perhaps you could design these storage units so that the capacitors or ultra-capacitors around any particular battery cell could be used independently of the battery itself and energy could be shuttled around like information is moved around in a computer’s RAM, only very much slower. Then there is the question about capacity volumes; what are the smallest possible units sizes and what are the most practical largest capacities for individual units. Could you add a few new types of layers on an integrated circuit so that sub-systems on the chip could hold energy like in a capacitor (similar to RAM with regard to holding information) or a battery (like flash memory in computing)?
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29 Aug
This is off topic, but perhaps one of the reasons why the number forty (40) has such prominence in the Judeo-Christian religions is because forty is the number of weeks for an average term of pregnancy (counting from the woman’s last menstrual period). The first chapter of Genesis marks out the seven day week as a basic measure of time. Stories such the one about Noah’s Ark mark out the duration of the flooding deluge as forty days and forty nights, and in this case the idea of a symbolic period of gestation and then a birth of sorts doesn’t seem far fetched. Perhaps one of the meanings behind the number forty in these texts is as a symbolic gestation period before a new birth of something. That could be for forty days and nights or forty years in the wilderness. That the period of forty weeks is not used in these texts very often is a strange omission, but to establish or legitimise some new idea or pattern the men involved (Noah, Moses and Jesus, for example) spent some time in the wilderness measured in lots of forty before emerging with a new approach. It points to the importance of the feminine, even going as far as to lend legitimacy to the patriarchs only after an, albeit unconscious, acknowledgment of the feminine. Just another idea to ponder.
Its interesting too that when the number forty is used there are usually two alternatives, set up as pairs nearly like mirror images or with one as the shadow of the other. With the Flood there are forty days of rain to start the flood and after the water receded Noah waited forty days before he sent the raven out and then later the dove which returned. This might also be another echo of the two versions of creation.
Or could you view these 3 fold patterns with multiples of 40, or at least for the beginning and end of a cycle with perhaps a longer time in the middle, as being in harmony with the basic feminine pattern in the phases of the moon; symbolically as maiden, mother and then crone.
[This blog would have to annoy just about everyone who reads it. For the religious types there are posts about science, technology and politics, and visa versa for those interested in the more technical ideas, expressed as they are all too crudely.]
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