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In New Scientist for 7 July 2001,p.50, there is a dandy UK word I think is superior to usual US equivalent. The article is about the early days of home radio reception, and to my amazement is about using illuminating gas to power a radio! Because the Brit, Insull, did his work in US, just about everybody here had electricity in home in the twenties. I remember the A, B, and C batteries. The A and C batteries were carbon-zinc dry cells, but most of the power was supplied by the B cells, which had to be a regular automobile battery, that could be charged from the house electric current. So I was surprised to learn that in Britain a very large part of homes did not have electricity, and the illuminating gas companies fearing loss of customers, promoted the use of a device that produced power from illuminating gas by "the thermoelectric effect: the generation of electricity in a circuit made of wires of different metals in which the junctions between those metals are maintained at different temperatures."
But the name of the device that stored the power so generated, was new to me. Except for our UK members, how many can guess what it was called?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Nope. It's just that the Brits use a word that makes good sense. Surprisingly, though, they use our word more often than the one of theirs I found so well chosen. At least in many sites I looked at to check.
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Joined: Apr 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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?did you bother to tell us the US equivalent? (I feel like i'm groping in the dark)
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Carpal Tunnel
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The title is "power source". I said that the principal power for home radios in twenties was a regular auto lead acid battery. This is what Brits have a different name for.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Another clue. The lead-acid battery is rechargeable. The Brit name indicates this.
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old hand
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old hand
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Well. Dr. Bill, I've seen the term "accumulator" used in this regard; kinda goes along with the archaic term, "condenser" for capacitor.
Your gas-powered thermocouple reminds me of the gas-powered refrigerators of former times. Anybody remember them?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear Geoff: You win the hand-painted pot. Chamber that is. Accumulator is the word New Scientist used, but far more UK links used lead-acid battery. As for gas powered refrigerators, the refrigerator in medical lab I worked in while in the Philippines was a Servel, running I think on natural gas. They had tubing on rear just like conventional refrigerator. I thought they were just a different type of heat pump.It was very satisfactory despite high temperatures - much of the time in high eighties and nineties.. I guess that there just wasn't enough demand for them to compete in US, though I wonder if some mobile homes might not still have them. While in Manila, I used to see big bomber circling overhead for sole purpose of making ice for the officers' messes. That must have cost taxpayers a bundle.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear Geoff: I looked, and there are many places still selling propane gas powered refrigerators, domestic and RV. Many of them apparently use electricity for temperature regulation. Some use kerosene.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Remember them? They still use them in rural Mexico.
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