First, however, some background. I’m a chemist (or used to be one), so I’m a super nerd when it comes to relativistic chemistry. It turns out that as elements get heavier, relativity becomes more and more important. As a theoretical chemist, one thing you learn quickly is that if you don’t take relativity into account, your calculation will be way off.

Without relativity, for example, my thesis work on IBr- had to take into account relativity. Iodine is a heavy element so relativity is important, so, I had to consider it. I did this the easy way: I let others take care of it! I used what’s called an ECP that sort of built in the relativity without my needing to worry.

I can hear you saying: so what, IBr isn’t that important and I’ve never heard of it. But, let’s say you want to calculate the what color gold metal should be or what mercury should be like at room temperature. Without relativity, gold looks like silver and mercury is a solid. With relativity, gold is gold and mercury is a liquid.

So now to the main event: why your car battery only works because of relativity. Couple  weeks ago, a paper came out in Physical Review Letters (PRL, 106, 018301 (2011) if you have access to it) by Pekka Pyykkö and collaborators called “Relativity and the Lead-Acid Battery”.  This paper uses relativistic quantum chemistry to model the reactions in a lead-acid battery (like the 12V battery in your car) and it found something rather amazing. Of the voltage generated by a lead-acid cell, which is ~2.1 V (there are 6 cells in a 12 V car battery), fully 1.7-1.8 V is due to relativistic effects. 80-85% of the voltage in a car battery is there because of relativity!

As the authors note in the paper, while the lead-acid cell has been known for 150 years, this paper is the first doing ab initio, or first principles, calculations, compared to the more modern lithium-ion cells of which ab initio calculations abound. The major reason for this is that lead is heavy and a heavy atom is a hard atom to calculate.

(They also show that without relativity, it’d make for a crap battery. They do calculations with lead’s lighter brother tin and find that a tin-acid battery wouldn’t be worth it’s weight in, well, tin.)

I just love it when something I studied, I’ve used, I know about has such a cool result like this.

Yours in NERD!,

Matt

Yes, I have seen Return often enough that I’m a semi-good judge of that. No, you were the frustrated nerd in school.

Yep, lost points on the ol’ man card with this. Deeeeeeeefinitely didn’t lose my nerd card, though. That sucker got upgraded to “nerd guy on Robot Chicken” level.

Yours in jedi,

Matt

Damn, I am a NERD!

But, back to the Inequality. A while back, I bought a matching set of shampoo and conditioner (citrus-lime). They were by the same manufacturer and came in the same size bottle.  Thus, they contained the same volume. But now in present day, I find that I have an empty bottle of shampoo, and an, oh, half-full conditioner bottle.

And I’m betting that would happen in every shower. Regardless of the showerees.

Why? Well, when I wash my hair, I always use, let’s say, x amount of shampoo. Sometimes, 2x, because, I “rinse and repeat” if the hair needs it. If I use conditioner, I’d use the same amount x of conditioner. But I’ve never repeated the conditioner, and sometimes, I just don’t use it at all.

So, I’m using, say, 1.5x of shampoo and 0.75x of conditioner. Thus:

shampoo used >= conditioner used

no matter what, in my shower. Thus, the Shampoo-Conditioner Inequality. Quod erat faciendum.

Huh.

You can’t get more nerdy than this post.

But I’m gonna try, baby.

Yours in math nerd,

Matt

Kinda hit me today that I miss “Doctor Who”.  That *entirely hypothetical* feeling of having the RSS Downloader of μTorrent grab the latest ep for me from cyberspace.  The joy of seeing a brand new ep of “DW” *somehow appearing* on my computer and watching it.  Yeah, I know, “Planet of the Dead” is arriving next month, around Easter if I recall correctly.  Yay!

Also kind of realizing that I really like the Tenth Doctor. Surprising considering how much I just loved the Ninth Doctor. I then think about the previous Doctors…and the future one.

What will the Eleventh Doctor be like? He’s young…too young?  Eh.  Part of me hopes that they give him some of the bits I liked best about the Fifth and Eighth Doctor.  Well, not the stupid cricket uniform of 5.  But, the youthful exuberance they both had.  And, thankfully, a longer run than the poor Eighth Doctor got. The few audio plays and comics I’ve read of 8 make me wish that Doctor got his shot on TV.