1) Efficiency (energy released compared to cost to charge). Most batteries of 20+ years ago had efficiencies lower than 80%. Today's Lithiums and variants have as much as 99%. That's incredible.
2) Shelf-life. The ability for a non-rechargable (ie Alkaline) has improved immensely. On average, an alkaline of 20 years ago had a 3-year shelf-life, today's batteries routinely have 7+.
Additionally, rechargables traditionally had poor shelf-life, but some modern products have a self-discharge factor low enough that they can actually be stored and last for years.
3) Your car battery is a lot tougher, and can work better over a wider range of temperatures and conditions than it used to.
Look, do you really think your CELL PHONE would be possible 20 years ago? That you wouldn't be swapping out that battery every month or so?
Claiming that 'everything was predicted in a 1950's chem book' is a bit silly, and you know it. Yes, batteries are based on a chemical reaction, and the fundamentals of that reaction were known a long time ago. That hasn't changed.
By the same token, the IC hasn't changed in the past 50 years either - it's still nothing more than a bunch of transistors. The gun is still just using the explosive reaction of gunpower (or some variant) to throw a projectile, but they've changed quite a bit in the last 50 years.
The material sciences used in the design and manufacture of batteries has changed immensely, and THAT is where the improvement lies. Hey, the Lithium battery, as used today, wasn't even possible commerically until the mid 90's. The Li-poly battery, probably the pinnacle of battery design, wasn't available until sometime in the last 5 years.
BTW, the mAh rating of a battery is meaningless. An Alkaline has a rating of 2300-2500, while a NiCd has 1200-2000. Yet the latter is better in electronics. The big advancements have come not in how much energy they store (although there has been some - Lithium batteries have vastly higher energy density than Alkalines), but how they release the energy.
Edit: Nonetheless, I do agree that we do need something better than the battery, be it fuel cells or anything else. It just bugs me when people complain about batteries not improving.--
Christopher Angel, aka JPublic
The Works of Christopher Angel
"Camaraderie, adventure, and steel on steel. The stuff of legend! Right, Boo?"
2) Shelf-life. The ability for a non-rechargable (ie Alkaline) has improved immensely. On average, an alkaline of 20 years ago had a 3-year shelf-life, today's batteries routinely have 7+.
Additionally, rechargables traditionally had poor shelf-life, but some modern products have a self-discharge factor low enough that they can actually be stored and last for years.
3) Your car battery is a lot tougher, and can work better over a wider range of temperatures and conditions than it used to.
Look, do you really think your CELL PHONE would be possible 20 years ago? That you wouldn't be swapping out that battery every month or so?
Claiming that 'everything was predicted in a 1950's chem book' is a bit silly, and you know it. Yes, batteries are based on a chemical reaction, and the fundamentals of that reaction were known a long time ago. That hasn't changed.
By the same token, the IC hasn't changed in the past 50 years either - it's still nothing more than a bunch of transistors. The gun is still just using the explosive reaction of gunpower (or some variant) to throw a projectile, but they've changed quite a bit in the last 50 years.
The material sciences used in the design and manufacture of batteries has changed immensely, and THAT is where the improvement lies. Hey, the Lithium battery, as used today, wasn't even possible commerically until the mid 90's. The Li-poly battery, probably the pinnacle of battery design, wasn't available until sometime in the last 5 years.
BTW, the mAh rating of a battery is meaningless. An Alkaline has a rating of 2300-2500, while a NiCd has 1200-2000. Yet the latter is better in electronics. The big advancements have come not in how much energy they store (although there has been some - Lithium batteries have vastly higher energy density than Alkalines), but how they release the energy.
Edit: Nonetheless, I do agree that we do need something better than the battery, be it fuel cells or anything else. It just bugs me when people complain about batteries not improving.--
Christopher Angel, aka JPublic
The Works of Christopher Angel
"Camaraderie, adventure, and steel on steel. The stuff of legend! Right, Boo?"