Why doesn't connecting 2 batteries drain it?

If there is no circuit, no current will flow. If you put two batteries together, end to end, like in a flashlamp, then the bottom of the first one is "negative" with respect to the top of that same battery. Therefore If you joined them with a wire then current would flow. However the bottom of the first battery is not "negative" with respect to the top of the second battery. There is no "potential difference". Look this term up.

Now if you hooked up two batteries in a parallel connection and the voltages of the batteries are not identity there will be a small flow of current from the battery with the greater voltage to the one with the lesser voltage until the voltages match.

The current flow depending on the degree the voltages does not match and the internal resistance of the batteries.

With car batteries where one is discharge and the other is fully charge that current can be many amps for a short time period.

You answered your own question....

It's the same reason that putting a spoon in a bowl of cereal doesn't make the cereal disappear.

Or walking to the diving board doesn't make you wet.

You have the potential for something to happen, but you didn't take all of the necessary steps.

no completed circuit = no drain

For example no ground or no potential difference. There is nothing pushing the flow of electrons.

This exact question was asked (more or less) elsewhere in a Physics forum:

"The confusion here is from the initial poor description of how a battery works:

A battery consists of three things: a positive electrode, a negative electrode, and an electrolyte in between. The electrodes are made of materials that strongly want (are predisposed) to react with each other; they are kept apart by the electrolyte.

The electrolyte acts like a filter that blocks the flow of electrons, but allows ions (positively charged atoms from the electrodes) to pass through. If the battery is not connected to anything, the chemical force is pulling on the ions, trying to draw them across the electrolyte to complete the reaction, but this is balanced by the electrostatic force-- the voltage between the electrodes. Remember-- a voltage between two points means there is an electric field between those points which pushes charged particles in one direction.

When you add a wire between the ends of the batteries, electrons can pass through the wire, driven by the voltage. This reduces the electrostatic force, so ions can pass through the electrolyte. As the battery is discharged, ions move from one electrode to the other, and the chemical reaction proceeds until one of the electrodes is used up.

Thinking about two batteries next to each other, linked by one wire-- there is no voltage between the two batteries, so there is no force to drive electrons. In each battery, the electrostatic force balances the chemical force, and the battery stays at steady state.

(I kind of glossed over what it means for two materials to "want" to react with each other. Google "Gibbs free energy" for more details on that. You might also google
Nernst equation.)"

Flashlight batteries are connected in series and do not drain until you switch the light on. Three 1.5 v. cells produce the amount of current to light the bulb.

I don't think I'm getting this.

You said "Thinking about two batteries next to each other, linked by one wire-- there is no voltage between the two batteries, so there is no force to drive electrons."

Why isn't there voltage between the two batteries? I am connecting the positive end of a battery with the negative end of another one, so isn't there a potential energy difference?

Thank you.

p.s. Could you give me the link to the question in the physics forum?

No, there isn't. I already told you that. If you stack 2 batteries one on top of the othere there is a potential difference between the positive cap of the top one and the negative base of the bottom one. Your question could only arise because you don't understand how batteries or electric circuits work. You need to do some studying. If you are still at school ask your teacher.

I am not getting it; could you be more explicit? As far as I can see, the only difference between a completed circuit and my hypothetical incomplete circuit is the layer of conductive material(electrolyte). How does this affect the voltage?
I.e. what do the Ions have got to do with this?
p.s. please give me the physics forum link if you have it

Maybe a different approach to the same thing would help. If you stack two, three, or more dry cells, positive to negative you aren't doing anything different than if you had a single cell. What you have done is to essentially creat a longer battery with a higher voltage potential

That longer battery acts exactly the same as a single cell. It's just sitting there, waiting to go to work. If they are connected by wire, they act exactly the same as if they were stacked, as in a flashlight.

That is part of my question; why does it act like a single battery?

That's what voltage sources that are connected in series do.

Why?

Try the old water analogy, then. You have two cylinders full of water. The water is going nowhere. Now connect them. What you now have is one longer cylinder of water - going nowhere.

Please don't come back and tell us the water would run out the end, unless you're just being deliberately obtuse.

I think you may have something there.

Firstly, I am not being obtuse: saying the water would run out in the end doesn't even make any sense.
Secondly, I think the water analogy is a bit oversimplified in this case.

Anyways, it seems to me that the main difference between two 1.5V batteries connected in a series and a 3v battery is the extra separator.

So, before I say anything else, this is my new question; what do ions have got to do with voltage?

p.s. This is a question on Physicsforum which seems similar to my question:
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=594520

The ions have to get their electrons from somewhere.

If you set the battery on the counter, and don't connect it to anything, the metal ends will have slight electrical charges, because the electrolyte mixture will have "pulled" some free electrons from one end, and "pushed" them to the other end.

When you place to batteries in contact, there will be a very tiny flow of electrons where the terminals touch, but not enough to really worry about.

If you are following the dialogue in that physics forum you wrote about, are you the member known as Aphyx? It sure sounds that way.

Whether you are Aphyx or not, people here and that forum are providing answers attemtping to explain. Perhaps you might re-read the info here as well as on that forum as people are providing you decent answers. I think you could be making this harder than it needs to be.

You guys jumped to insulting him and there still is really no answer that makes sense to the laymen (of which I am).

The question is simple. If you take the positive terminal of one single battery and connect it with a piece of metal (say, the same metal that the cap of the terminals are made of) to the negative terminal, electrons will flow from the negative to the positive (or whatever order it is).

So why, when you attach the positive terminal to the bottom negative terminal of a different battery, don't the charges flow in the same manner?

We are envisioning batteries as having an excess of electrons in, say, the negative terminal and they want to seek out a positive terminal (like we would experience with a North pole seeking out a South pole in regard to magnets).

So, unless someone was saying "it's the similar metal preventing electron flow" I too don't understand why. Unless you're saying "if you connect the negative end of one battery to the positive of another *with* a copper cable it will work;" but I don't think you are.

What I am thinking is that the electron flow is somehow dependant on the positive terminal and the electrons pull from the positive terminal when leaving the negative, but I'm not clear on what that looks like.

It sounds like the positive terminal is more than just a 'negative space' ready to receive electrons, but I think this is what most of us are thinking due too electrostatic principles (if you had electrostatic charges they would operate in this manner; seeking out *any* alternative terminal).

So if someone patient could simplify it for me and those interested it would be great.

And if you're going to complain about necroing a thread (I get that impression on this page): this is a relevant, *unanswered* question that returns when doing a Google query in regard to how this question works (it's how I got here). It also brings traffic to the site (it wasn't locked either).