Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Leyden Jar
In 1746, Pieter Van Musschenbroeck invented a small device that could store a large electric charge. He called this device the Leyden Jar and it was used to perform many experiments in electricity during the seventeenth and eighteenth century. The original form of the device was just a glass bottle partially filled with water, with a metal wire passing through a cork closing it. The role of the outer plate was provided by the hand of the experimenter. Soon it was found that it was better to coat the exterior of the jar with metal foil, leaving the impure water inside acting as a conductor, connected by a chain or wire to an external terminal, a sphere, to avoid losses by corona discharge. It was initially believed that the charge was stored in the water. Ben Franklin investigated the Leyden Jar, and concluded that the charge was stored in the glass, not in the water, as others had assumed. (wikipedia)
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A Leyden jar is a device that early experimenters used to help build and store electric energy. It was also referred to as a "condenser" because many people thought of electricity as fluid or matter that could be condensed. Nowadays someone familiar with electrical terminology would call it a capacitor.
Basically, the Leyden jar is a cylindrical container made of a dielectric with a layer of metal foil on the inside and on the outside. With the outside surface grounded, a charge is given to the inside surface. This gives the outside an equal but opposite charge. When the outside and inside surfaces are connected by a conductor, you get a spark and everything returns to normal.
The amount of charge one of these devices can store is related to the voltage applied to it times its capacitance.
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