system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Batteries and TV remotes...

This happens a lot with me. A TV remote stops working. No button I can press does anything. So I open the battery compartment rotate them a bit and then the remote works again! So what's happening here: Am I facilitating the release of some more electricity that didn't have the necessary voltage to work? Am I creating energy through the small rotation of the batteries? Have they just lost contact and a small movement lets them make electrical contact again? 

This seems a little like when Marty punches the DeLorean to get it started...
gpt
Materials Scientist - 

The ends of batteries and the terminals on the remote are made from either nickel or steel. In the atmosphere, both of these metals exist with an oxide film. Even brand new, there is a thin layer of oxide on this metal. It just comes with exposure to oxygen.

Metal oxide is an insulator that electrons will not travel through. The only reason metal contacts work is that the oxide layer is small enough that either the electron can avoid the oxide atom or it can quantum tunnel through the layer.

The other thing going on here is a battery's charge changes as it is drained. A rechargeable NiMH will be 1.4V when it is just charged, 1.2V through most of its life, and 1.1V when it is close to death. Alkaline and heavy duty batteries are similar. The thickness of oxide an electron can tunnel through is related to its voltage, so near death the oxide layer is thicker and the voltage is lower.

When you rotate the battery, you remove some, but not all, of the oxide layer and allow new paths to go through and this gives you just a bit longer battery life.