A few different applied technological inventions transformed life in ways that touch the lives of nearly everyone alive today; some have origins in the 19th & 18th century, like batteries. Electricity energized transistors that most changed life for most people alive today. Just like jet engines & aircraft powered by them, or antibiotics & vaccines.
If you are reading this, online, you're probably not living like a native from the 1400 in the Amazonian rain forest as an indigenous tribesman like some people at protected heritage sites do in small rural isolated parts of South American countries today.
You probably live in a city & own a computer & have internet access. You probably have electricity, from smaller solar battery systems or from a grid connection to a utility company that's connected to large industrial power generation capacity like hydroelectric dams or nuclear fission power reactors or natural gas generation. There are lots of ways to make electricity.
The then standardized 22-1/2v "dry" carbon-zinc battery started to power the first mass produced transistorized consumer electronic, the Regency TR-1, that sold for $49 US in 1954, similar to $540 USD 2021 today / a handheld transistor radio with 4 TI germanium NPN transistors made by Texas Instruments, which sold over 100,000 units.
Think of rechargeable chemistries like PbA/SLA/AGM (lead acid) & NiFe (nickel iron) & NiCD (nickel cadmium) & significantly NiMH (nickel metal hydride) & Li-Ion (lithium cobalt oxide: carbon) (NCA)(LFP)(NMC)(titanate) (silicon nanowire) (LiPo polymer) (prismatic) (cylindrical) (terraced *Apple)
Battery in the singular sense means a single cell or 1S, one battery pile or coil or block with positive + & negative - terminal connections to attach conductive insulated metal* wires in order to connect them to DC electric circuits to power logic, relays (mechanical or solid state), motors, fans, pumps, switches, LED's, laser diodes, fiberoptic transceivers, electrooptical pumps, high voltage transformers, inverters, VF motor controllers, brushless DC motors, bulbs, lamps, backlights, human interface devices, touchscreens, televisions, computer monitors, desktops, servers, cloud computer networks, telecommunications infrastructure & more.
Battery typically refers to multiple battery cells connected in parallel like 2 units in a 2P configuration where the output voltage stays the same but the current output or capacity in AH or amp hour increases by double. When 2 battery cells are connected in series like 2S then the voltage doubles, but the capacity or current output stays about the same.
Usually, battery packs in something like the Tesla Model 3 electric vehicle or a Segway Mini Pro consist of many batteries assembled into a pack in both parallel & series, in groups, in order to get to the correct voltage output with series connections & each series unit consisting of multiple cells in parallel to increase the energy storage capacity & or current output or power level; ability to give more output current faster.
More voltage means more current can flow over smaller wires; more current means more work can be performed by producing greater transient electron flux either to make stronger electromagnetic fields like in the power windings of a IPM or integral permanent magnetic motor or to produce stronger lattice ionization flux in the core of an LED, as examples.
Higher current is what kills or make the voltage dangerous, especially above 80 VDC or around 120 VAC respectively. For example, a 5 ma power supply of 1500 vac not very dangerous & often used to energize electronic bug killing traps- that low current of 5 milliamps not enough to harm a human usually.
Low voltage, like 12vdc much safer for people & animals, in wet places like landscape lighting & in cars & boats & other vehicles like motorcycles / 6vdc was even safer, but required bigger wires & better for electronic circuits, than power electronics. In vehicles we are talking about a 12v SLI battery to power the starter motor & to recharge from the alternator generator charging for future starting events & to help run lights & stereos & others loads that might exceed the alternators output in short pulses when the big subwoofer hits a low high intensity base note in powerful car stereo systems that can easily produce hearing loss levels of SPL or sound pressure levels, intense noise that shakes the ear hairs that produce hearing signals for the brain, so hard that it damages the hairs & once they are lost they never grow back, so hearing loss typically cumulative meaning once you lose it its gone & hearing aids only amplify the sounds & do not actually solve the functional loss problem that causes hearing loss.
Most battery packs, especially NiMH & Li-Ion, contain a low voltage low power BMS or battery management system to protect the battery cell from overcharging, deep discharging, shorting & other kinds of damage. That gets us to CMOS or transistors mass manufactured, the kinds that are used to make the brains in the BMS, microcontrollers, smartphones, computers & other compute applications that have transformed modern life significantly. Without batteries & electricity, the compute that we know today would not be possible, nor would it be possible to have refrigeration or air conditioning or microwave ovens or lights or all kinds of other appliances & electric devices & electronics of all kinds.
Most COTS or consumer off the shelf technologies make use or chips or integrated circuits, complementary metal oxide (CMOS) lithography printed, mass manufactured computer chips or chipsets, SSD & SOC's & logic gates assembled into systems of systems so complicated that they require thousands of people to design in a longitudinal collaborative effort at companies like Apple, AMD, Intel & NVIDIA
Electricity energizes transistors, so which is better, the AC & DC electricity or analog & digital logic / a really chicken before the egg paradox or catch 22 // they really work combined into functional systems.
Think wireless technology, radios, satellites, high speed internet & broadband online access, information technology, smart devices, IOT, cryptocurrencies & general artificial intelligence that's flexibly able to solve open domain problems like handling noodles & wires & fabric, better than a person, with generalized adaptive neuron inspired tensor flow GAN style neural network synthetic vision systems & dynamic balance & control & precise interface manipulation that rivals or exceeds the capacities of an elite human performers hands.
It's how the transistors are connected that makes all the difference, like people!
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