Piezoelectric

Pag pinukpok ang remote control na wala o mahina ang baterya, gumagana ulit.

Do you think this is a myth? I mean it works, right? I have tried this not just once, and well, it worked not just once. I actually thought this is just a myth... no scientific basis whatsoever.

I. Was. Wrong. (And maybe some of you as well. Hehehe.)

I was surfing the web, looking for some phenterex reviews, and then I saw this short article about some batteries that are actually piezoelectric. I saw a similar report on this but when I first encountered the concept, they say it was far from being a usable technology for now. But the article I read just a while ago says piezoelectric-ness [emphasis mine] is actually a property of many batteries.
From Wiki:

Piezoelectricity is the charge that accumulates in certain solid materials (notably crystals, certain ceramics, and biological matter such as bone, DNA and various proteins) in response to applied mechanical stress. The word piezoelectricity means electricity resulting from pressure.

So, there! It is not really baseless if sometimes we tend to bang a remote control against our palm or something hoping the batteries would be charged.
Kakatuwa lang. :-)