Okay, in fact, everything is not so terrible - the ringing is not very loud, and, given the importance of the experiment, scientists are willing to be patient. The fact is that the bell itself is not of particular interest, but the batteries, on which it runs, are still not a completely solved problem for physicists. It is thanks to these batteries that the bell rings for so long. Perhaps if scientists managed to fully understand the principle of their work, and then modified and applied to modern technology, someday we would get gadgets, the charge of which does not run out for years! Charge your smartphone once and use it for the rest of your life - but so far it sounds like science fiction.
So let's get back to reality. Zamboni pole, dry galvanic battery, electrostatic battery - this device has many names. It was invented by Italian physicist Giuseppe Zamboni in an attempt to compete with Alessandro Volta himself in the early 19th century. As opposed to the Volt pole, which was based on zinc and copper plates in a sulfuric acid solution, Zamboni used other materials. A glass tube is stacked with layers of paper or flannel disks covered with zinc or silver foil on one side and manganese dioxide on the other. In between is paper, which acts as a current conductor - a classic version of a dry galvanic battery. It sounds complicated, of course, but you can try to remember your chemistry classes. "Galvanic" means that the current comes from a chemical source. Most often these are different metals and/or their oxides, and depending on their electrochemical potential, the electromotive force (EMF) of the battery will be greater or less. Here, too, Zamboni has often experimented with materials, and to find out exactly what the battery at Oxford University is made of, scientists would have to dissect it open, which would disrupt this whole long experiment. However, they know for sure that the dry battery has a very high capacity and low power consumption due to the weak current - the pole, so to speak, is "lazy" and uses a minimum of its power, which makes them last for 175 years. By the way, the Guinness Book of Records awarded it the title of the longest-lasting battery in the world.
If we remember that a unit of measurement is named after Volta, and his portrait hangs in almost every physics classroom at school, we can guess that Zamboni lost in that competition. Nevertheless, the dry battery was popular in Europe during the creator's lifetime and was the basis not only for the Oxford bell, but also for the pendulums in the Museum of the History of Physics at the University of Padua and at the Institute of Physics in Modena. Both devices worked for about a hundred years and continued to function until Zamboni's death, which is why he called his inventions "perpetual electric motors.
The Oxford bell itself was made in the workshop of Watkin and Hill in 1840, as the handwritten inscription "Made in 1840" on it testifies. Later it was bought by Robert Walker, professor of physics, who allowed it to continue ringing within the walls of Oxford University. Between the two bowls, connected to dry batteries, is a ball, and on the principle of the pendulum it touches one, then another, alternately, causing a chime. Every time it strikes the bowl, the battery supplies only 1 nanoampere of current, but it is enough to set the ball in motion. By the way, the ringing is quiet precisely because of the low current supply - the ball barely touches the bowls, and also because the entire structure is hidden in a showcase behind two layers of glass.
The frequency of the ball's oscillation is 2 Hz, i.e. twice a second. According to the calculations of observers, it has rung about 10 billion times and is not going to stop in the near future. Nevertheless, contrary to Zamboni's conviction, neither his other pendulums nor the Oxford Electric Bell can be considered something like a perpetual motion machine. The device still works only because of the large capacity of the Zamboni poles. Scientists do not know when the bell will stop ringing - probably when the bowls themselves mechanically wear out. In the meantime, it keeps ringing and ringing and ringing.
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