1) providing you limit the current and stop it when it reaches 1.6V not harm will be done, there again if it's a 1500mAh cell then it can take less than 150mA indefinately.
2) No, of course it won't charge, learn Ohm's law, charge always flows from a high potential to a low potential so a 1.2V cell will discharge into a 1V supply.
2) No, of course it won't charge, learn Ohm's law, charge always flows from a high potential to a low potential so a 1.2V cell will discharge into a 1V supply.
You can charge a 1.2V Ni-MH cell from 1 million volts if you limit the charging current with a resistor or electronic circuit. The voltage across the battery cell will slowly rise until it is near being fully charged, then its voltage peaks then drops slightly before rising higher as it is overcharged.
Here is a graph from www.energizer.com who have datasheets for all their batteries:
Uhh no, actually a million volts will fry just about anything. =) Even the best insulators breakdown at those voltage, but that's beside the point. What audioguru is trying to say is that current is the important part of charging a battery, not the voltage.
This isn't true, some of the largest electrical transmission lines use peak-peak voltages higher than 1MV.
Dielectric strengh is mainly governed by the type of insulation and its thickness, you could build GV insulators if you wanted to but they'd be very big.
Some high voltage transmission lines I see have glass insulators at least 5m long. There is no salt spray from the nearby lake and the lines are about 50m above the ground.