Where does this come from, and can I check it?

Its clapper has struck two bells billions of times on a dry pile battery. The figure is taken from University of Oxford, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.

Is this really a records & extremes fact?

Yes. It sits on the Records & Extremes shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.

What else can I read about it?

The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.

Mondo Knows Facts

The Oxford Electric Bell has rung since 1840

Its clapper has struck two bells billions of times on a dry pile battery The bell, also called the Clarendon dry pile, was bought in 1840 and has run almost continuously since, driven by two stacks of metal foil discs that act as a primitive battery. No one has taken it apart because the chemistry is not fully known and the pile might not survive. It hangs in a corridor at Oxford and is estimated to have rung around ten billion times. It sits in Mondo's records & extremes collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.

Where this comes from

University of Oxford

Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.

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Tags: batteries, oxford, experiments

The Oxford Electric Bell has rung since 1840: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?: Its clapper has struck two bells billions of times on a dry pile battery. The figure is taken from University of Oxford, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
Is this really a records & extremes fact?: Yes. It sits on the Records & Extremes shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
What else can I read about it?: The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.