Henry Schlesinger

This book is not so much about batteries as about devices that run on battery power. I rather suspect that the author tried to write a book about batteries but really the devices are much more interesting. For starters the devices do interesting things and then too the way the devices work is much easier to understand. Electro-chemistry, who can make any sense of that?

For me the book was disappointing. I would really like to understand batteries. This book didn't help me.

Right at the end the book changes gears in the oddest way. Just before that we were told about Moore's law and the explosion in device complexity that ought to be obvious to anyone over the age of maybe ten. Moore's Law... what sorts of technology permit that kind of progress, over such a long period? Probably many technologies have periods of exponential growth. To have such a short doubling period, and to double again and again over so many cycles, that is the miracle of microelectronics. Of course it would be a wonderful delight were batteries to make any kind of progress resembling that miracle. But however much we would like that, is it a realistic thing to expect?

Schlesinger tells us about Faraday's Law which gives rise to a considerable degree of pessimism in this regard. He then tells us that somehow Lithium Ion batteries manage a "chemical side step around Faraday's Lay" - p. 272. This reader would sure like to hear about that! This reader would in fact like a whole book about that, would indeed prefer such a book to the present one!

The present book is a fun enough romp through the history of electrical devices. It's a tale that has been told many times and the telling here is good enough. I expect most readers will learn some new angles. But I didn't find much of a point to the book. Right at the end I am encouraged to expect remarkable advances in battery technology, but I am given no grounds at all on which I might base such optimism - beyond of course the bare demand for such advances, which is mighty shaky ground!… (lisätietoja)