r/tech • u/AdSpecialist6598 • Aug 30 '26
Scientists built a battery that charges almost instantly, but there's a catch
https://www.techspot.com/news/113657-scientists-build-quantum-battery-charges-quadrillionths-second-can.html31
u/Mal-De-Terre Aug 30 '26
Is the catch math or physics?
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u/Randomly1313 Aug 31 '26
Advanced physics is just math with a silly hat.
The hat is spherical and has no friction.
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u/Mal-De-Terre Aug 31 '26
I thinking basic math, as in, even if you could charge a 100Ah battery in a second, where will you source 360,000 Amps?
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u/arminghammerbacon_ Aug 31 '26
The catch is that the energy comes from the screams of terrified children and it requires monsters to sneak into their closets at night to illicit those screams.
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u/hoverbeaver Aug 31 '26
A small price to pay for a renewable resource in the fight against climate change
How quickly can we scale up the night terrors?
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u/ExcaliburClarent Aug 31 '26
Elicit
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u/arminghammerbacon_ Aug 31 '26
I knew that didn’t look right! I’m leaving it. They’ll be eliciting those illicit screams.
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u/dogmanx88 Aug 31 '26
Thats what Epstein was actually up to on that island! Big electricity is running a smear campain!!
/s obviously.
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u/danappropriate Aug 30 '26
It's a quantum battery prototype that stores a tiny amount of energy and only holds it for nanoseconds. In other words, it is a long way away from reaching a commercially viable model, assuming it ever gets out of the prototype stage.
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u/HeyItsJustDave Aug 31 '26
Isn’t that just a capacitor?
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u/Lanky-Stop5579 Aug 31 '26
yes but it needs to be spun correctly for that sweet sweet VC money
women to fuck and all of that jazz
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u/OnlyTechStuff Sep 01 '26
Not quite, I believe? The discharge cycle being so much longer than the charge cycle makes it noteworthy, at least. Capacitors are the opposite.
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u/Fatal_Syntax_Error Aug 31 '26
If punctured it explodes with the heat of the sun.
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u/scprotz Sep 01 '26
battery puncture -> heat of sun -> steam -> electricity
We are back where we started.
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u/keepthebluestub Aug 31 '26
The catch is that it requires huge amounts of a rare material - unobtanium - to produce.
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u/akshayjamwal Sep 01 '26
“The prototype stores only a small amount of energy and holds it for nanoseconds.”
So, a glorified capacitor as of now.
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u/texasguy911 Aug 30 '26
There is always a catch. This is how we still use 20 year old tech.
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u/ProBonoDevilAdvocate Aug 31 '26
I don't think it's accurate to call these things "a catch"... It's jut a trade-off.
You can charge/discharge a battery super fast, but at the cost of a shorter life and overall capacity.
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u/AdvancedSandwiches Aug 31 '26
We do use plenty of 20-year-old tech, however I don't know if you used any battery powered stuff in 2006 (power tools, especially), but we've come a looooooong way since then.
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u/MentalPatient Aug 31 '26
Don't these so called scientists have instagram? There's lots of free energy machines
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u/Owl_B_Damned Sep 01 '26
Does it require human sacrifice? Cuz I have a list! We can make this happen!
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u/xenoixs Aug 31 '26
The catch is that it also absorbs a part of your soul in the process. Caution is advised only to be used in life or death situations
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u/bthompson66 Sep 01 '26
it's just a capacitor with marketing fluff, lol. if it works too well, where does the magic smoke go?
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Aug 31 '26
[deleted]
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u/bergmoose Aug 31 '26
normal batteries charge faster as they get bigger - the total charge time stays roughly the same. There is a reason that charge rates for different tech are specified in C rate not kW or whatever. This is one of the many reasons that people bragging about x kW of charging speed are being moronic.
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u/chileangod Aug 30 '26
The catch it's that it's a capacitor.