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I am not a physicist, and I don't understand the details of electromagnetism. Anyhow, I was looking for how the batteries work in Google. So, I came across this article: "How batteries work: A gravitational analog" by Dana Roberts.

In the abstract, she said something about "gravitational cell". Then she gave a lot of technical words that I could not understand. I was going to read the whole article, but I don't have account for AJP. So, I don't have access for this article.

My question here is: What is the "gravitational cell"? Please, explain it to me in detail with some illustrations.

EDIT:

Just to let you know, I found the full article here

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    $\begingroup$ The wording of the abstract, and the use of quotation marks, strongly suggests that the "gravitational cell" is something that will be described in the paper. I imagine it's some kind of gravitational analog to an electrochemical cell. The only way to find out for sure is to get a copy of the paper and read it. $\endgroup$
    – N. Virgo
    May 17, 2013 at 12:06
  • $\begingroup$ Yeah, you are right. However, as I said before, I don't have access for it! $\endgroup$ May 17, 2013 at 15:02
  • $\begingroup$ The link seems to be broken. $\endgroup$ Jun 16, 2013 at 3:37

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I got the access but I'm too sleepy to understand. Sorry. I will just throw a picture here. Hope I didn't violate any sort of copyright law. yawn

this is not the full artical but i think its enough

DO NOT COPY OR SPREAD THIS PICTURE. PLEASE DELETE THIS ANSWER IF THERE ARE ANY VIOLATION OF THE LAW. I'm a Chinese. I know no copyright thingy.

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  • $\begingroup$ I still don't get it, why did she use the gravitational energy instead of chemical energy? $\endgroup$ May 19, 2013 at 17:05
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    $\begingroup$ As the paper title says, it is very likely an analogy. $\endgroup$ May 19, 2013 at 18:34
  • $\begingroup$ I know, but why? She should've used the chemical energy as it is. Or am I missing something? $\endgroup$ May 21, 2013 at 13:37
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    $\begingroup$ (Note: I am not a copyright lawyer.) Since this is only a small part of the article and is being used for educational purposes, and probably not depriving the copyright owner of income, I would guess that this falls under fair use provisions. Take this with a grain of salt though. In practice what defines "fair use" is up to the courts and whether the copyright holder (AJP in this case) decides to sue or not. $\endgroup$
    – Michael
    Jul 25, 2013 at 0:16
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The article is referring to the Gravity Cell which is stype of Daniell Cell. ffor more information refer to - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniell_cell#Gravity_cell. It was termed so because the zinc sulphate sat on top of a layer of copper sulphate due to the difference in Specific Gravity - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_gravity.

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Both the title of the article ("How batteries work: a Gravitational Analog") and the abstract clearly state that the gravitational cell is used as an analogy. This is used to explain the movement of electrons through diffusion under osmotic pressure.

In other words, "gravitational cell" is only used to help understand normal batteries. It does not mean that there is anything like a "gravitational battery"

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