Talk:Leyden jar

The dissectible Leyden jar

I believe this is a myth and should be rewritten. - Omegatron 00:29, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

See Talk:Capacitor#Charge_on_plates_or_insulator.3F

A Leyden jar is constructed out of a plastic cup nested between two snugly-fitting metal cups. When the jar is charged and carefully dismantled, it is discovered that all the parts may be freely handled without discharging the jar. If the pieces are reassembled, a large spark may still be obtained.

This demonstration shows that the charge is stored on the surface of the dielectric, and not on the metal conductors. When the jar is taken apart, simply touching the cup does not give you enough surface area to discharge it. The conductors provide this surface area.

Proposed fix:

I have posted a rewrite of this section. - Omegatron 19:46, Jun 4, 2005 (UTC)

This whole section is not very good at all. Its poorly explained and not very well written. --Deglr6328 07:25, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

It's been a while since Nov 05, but I have to say this section is still rather poorly written. After reading it through several times, it appears to be saying, "A: There is a myth that you can disassemble a Leyden jar and touch the individual parts without discharging the stored charge, which of course is not true, but B: Ben Franklin did this and so can you if you are careful, so C: You have to carefully word your description of this procedure so that people will understand the difference between the fact that this is not true and the fact that it is." Unfortunately this section does not carefully explain it, and the reader is left wondering what exactly is being discussed, and what the original author intended by the use of the term, "myth." (Also, no previous mention has been made in the article about "plastic cups". Is this a reference to contemporary versions of the Leyden jar?) Darentig 15:51, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Not to try and harp on this too much, but the charge is stored within the dielectric. If you do the math on any capacitor and using the Poynting Vector will show that the actually energy is stored within the dielectric. You can get charge on the plates, but ultimately the dielectric is where the real energy is. This happens from the stretching effect of applying an electric field around an atom, the larger it can stretch, the better the dielectric is. I'd suggest removing this section because its mis-leading on how a capacitor works. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.33.47.225 (talk) 00:30, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

The energy is stored in the electric field and polarization of the dielectric between the plates, as you say. The charge is stored on the plates. --Chetvorno^TALK 04:38, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I suggest that you view this fantastic demonstration of a jar disassembled and reassembled....the charge is still there. Look at episode 11. http://www.abc.net.au/science/features/whyisitso/default.htm

Another link showing the dissection, for the interested: MIT Physics Demo -- Dissectible Capacitor (youtube). Nanite (talk) 18:55, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Water?

Benjamin Franklin investigated the Leyden jar, and proved that the charge was stored on the glass, not in the water as others had assumed. Originally, the units of capacitance were in 'jars' and a jar is equivalent to about 1 nF

What water? The description above says that the jars are coated with foil inside and out. No mention of filling it with water anywhere else in the article. Also, don't we say two sections below that the charge is stored on the foil, not the glass? — Omegatron 21:10, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Water was used by Kleist and by Musschenbroek. According to Helibron, it was Watson acting on a suggestion from John Bevis that "first armed the bottom of his bottle with thin lead sheets." [Heilbron, 1979, p. 317] But by the time that Franklin received one of the jars from Collinson, the electricians were already using metal foil on either side of the glass. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Karxpava (talk • contribs) 20:17, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

I believe Ben had water inside the jar according to the capacitor page. THis of course could be wrong! We say I think that the charge is stored on the surface of the glass (which also happens to be the foil - yes?) 8-| --Light current 01:04, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

THe suspicious edit to the capacitor page (re water) was made on the 18 Aug 2005. I cant get to the history of that page around that time to see who added it. I hope it wasnt me! 8-|--Light current 01:56, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Kleist sometimes had water in the jar and his hand was the outer plate.Edison 02:32, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the sentence as it conflicts with our own description of the charge being stored on the conductors. — Omegatron 03:08, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

You probably need to alter the capacitor page to line up with this one now. 8-)--Light current 12:16, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Remove 'Circuit theory' section?

I think the section on 'displacement current' should be removed. It is covered almost word for word in Capacitor which is the appropriate place for it, since most of the traditional applications for the Leyden jar deal with electrostatics and don't involve displacement current. Also, the article includes none of the foundation of circuit theory and Maxwell's equations needed to make the paragraph comprehensible to nontechnical readers. Unless someone comes up with a specific connection between Maxwell and Leyden jars, I am going to remove it. --Chetvorno^TALK 07:59, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Done --Chetvorno^TALK 14:12, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Leyden?

I'm Dutch, and the city is spelled "Leiden", not "Leyden". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.211.36.205 (talk) 14:52, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

In English the most common name is Leyden, used in all the history of this device. 146.164.26.90 (talk) 15:47, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree that the city's name should be spelled correctly, it should be 'Leiden' and not some arbitrary English version of it.Abiermans (talk) 06:13, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

WP:NAME says that the article name should be what the greatest number of English speakers would recognise, and I believe most widespread usage is 'Leyden jar'. However, 'Leiden jar' is also used, and could be included in the first sentence as an alternate name. --Chetvorno^TALK 19:39, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Added 'Leiden jar' to lead sentence as alternate name. --Chetvorno^TALK 19:43, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Another problem is the derivitation(misspelled?) of the name Leyden. I mean here it says it comes from the university http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor#History but in this article the name of the city is used for the origin of the name Leyden jar. Which is right?--Leonardo Da Vinci (talk) 08:51, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Not a misspelling, just an outdated spelling. Leyden, along with its variants Leijden and Lyden, is an old spelling of the name of that city. It was changed to the modern spelling Leiden somewhere around 1885 to follow standard dutch orthography. Apparently the new spelling didn't propagate into english. And in case you're wondering, I'm dutch too. PiusImpavidus (talk) 11:52, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Battery (of Leyden jars) Invented by?

Was "Battery" (of Leyden jars) invented by Benjamin Franklin or Daniel Gralath? (It was named by Franklin)

Heilbron says that Gralath first connected the jars in parallel and called it a battery. [Heilbron, 1979. p 317] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Karxpava (talk • contribs) 20:19, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Inconsistency

The information in the article is not clear. According to the article the 'Leiden jar' was invented:

in 1745 by Pieter van Musschenbroek, in 1745 by Ewald Georg von Kleist, in 1746 by Pieter van Musschenbroek.

Is it really not established who gets the credit for this invention or is it just sloppy writing?Abiermans (talk) 06:23, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Von Kleist communicated on his discovery with a member of the German scientific community on November 4, 1745 (Dr. Lieberkühn, who communicated it to the Academy of Berlin) before Van Musschenbroeck, contrarily to what is written in the article. He discovered its effect on October 11, 1745. Van Musschenbroeck discovered it independently at a (to me) unknown date before he communicated it in a letter to the French scientific community (Réaumur and abbot Nollet) in January 1846.

After that, Abbé Nollet communicated and experimented on it with a broader community (180 people in the presence of the French king Louis XV). So it's the French original denomination "Leyden jar" rather than the German "Kleistian jar" or "Kammin jar" that passed to the posterity. Arjen Dijksman (talk) 14:53, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Just coming from Kleist article, where the year is 1745, this article states van Musschenbroek invented it 1744. No sources are given. Something is wrong, somewhere. --95.88.220.12 (talk) 10:51, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Electricity in the 17th and 18th Centuries: A Study of Early Modern Physics. Heilbron p300-323 has much on Kliests discovery (and failed attempts to communicate the design and operation) of the jar. - Rod57 (talk) 14:08, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

question

how was the electricity generated in a leyden jar? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Barrelofoil (talk • contribs) 16:49, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

As the 'Description' section says, it was charged by an electrostatic generator. Perhaps it should be made more clear that the Leyden jar didn't generate its own electricity, since the water-filled ones resemble a liquid battery. --Chetvorno^TALK 19:48, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Reference 5 is wrong

reference 5: Letter IV: Benjamin Franklin to Peter Collinson, April 29, 1749 (Bigelow vol II p. 237-253)

This is an indirect reference to

BIGELOW, John (editor). The complete works of Benjamin Franklin, vol II, 1744-1757. p 121, LXI To Peter Colinson, Philadelphia, 1748. New York: G. P. Putnans’s Sons, 1887. Available at: <http://infomotions.com/etexts/archive/ia300032.us.archive.org/0/items/bigelowfranklin02johnrich/bigelowfranklin02johnrich_djvu.txt>.

as you may see at page 121-137 the excerpts are incorrectly referenced. indirect citations are not recomended. I think it should be replaced by the direct reference to the letter in this link.

Agranero (talk) 05:24, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

comparison to modern capacitors

From what I've read, a Leyden jar had a voltage rating somewhere in the >10kV or more range, with a capacitance around 0.1 to 1 nF, although at the moment I can't find a good citation. In other words the maximum stored energy was of order 0.01 J to 1 J. It's interesting to compare to modern capacitors of similar rating (example 2). So, a modern capacitor might be one to two inches on a side, but cost ~$50. It's interesting because this means that for a hobbyist it would make sense to build one's own high voltage capacitors, which is definitely something not practical to do with low voltage capacitors. This sort of comparison could be nice to include in the article though I'm not sure how to phrase it at the moment. Nanite (talk) 11:11, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

That's interesting. I've heard some Tesla coil nerds build glass capacitors for their units, although the ones I've seen consist of stacks of flat glass sheets with sheet metal plates between them. Leyden jars were widely used in spark-gap radio transmitters, the first radio transmitters around the turn of the century, which were essentially powerful Tesla coils. However you might not want to use a plain jar; early sources said Leyden jars in transmitters sometimes exploded, probably due to heating from dielectric permittivity. Leyden jars in transmitters were specially constructed with thicker glass at the mouth, where the electric field stresses and corona leakage were concentrated. --Chetvorno^TALK 12:40, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

The discussion of how Leyden Jars work (exactly as modern capacitors do) really should have a reference to Michael Faraday. It was he, NOT Franklin, that discovered how a Leyden Jar worked. It was his friend, the classicist William Whewell, who suggested the term "dielectric". Faraday constructed a variable capacitor in which he could change out the dielectric material. Karxpava (talk) 20:42, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

References

Progression of Technology

This article is thorough and complete for the most part but I feel that it would benefit from several things. First off I feel that a section dedicated to comparing the original design and effectiveness to current examples of capacitors and batteries would help readers grasp how far the technology has come as well as provide a tangible visual example of the principles that we often take for granted. Additionally I feel that this article may benefit from more specific references to dates rather than general time periods as this was a device that was invented and thus developed independently by two different individuals. The term "around" when referring to time is much to general and can lead to unnecessary ambiguity.Down6263 (talk) 17:20, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

What is the max charge?

What is the max charge that a (avrage?) Leyden Jar can store? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.233.0.184 (talk) 21:49, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Bank of hundreds of jars in parallel at Nauen transatlantic wireless station, Germany, 1908

Good question, maybe that should be in the article. As mentioned, a typical pint jar had a capacitance C of 1 nF. The voltage V you can put on a jar is limited by the gap between the outside foil and the center electrode; if the voltage was too high it would arc over. That's the reason many jars had foil only halfway up the side. The dielectric strength of air is about 30,000 volts per inch, so if the gap between the foil and electrode was 2 inches the jar could stand a voltage of 60,000 volts, and at that voltage the charge would be

$Q=CV=6\times 10^{-6}{\text{coulomb}}$

In contrast, they now have small supercapacitors which have capacitances of 1000 farads at 1 volt, which could thus store 1000 coulombs.

Some early spark-gap transmitters had banks of hundreds of large 5 foot high jars in parallel to store an enormous charge, which was discharged through a spark gap into the tuned circuit to create powerful radio waves. --Chetvorno^TALK 00:10, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

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Musschenbroek and Cunaeus

The account about Cunaeus, described by Heilbron, indicates that Cunaeus succeeded (link should go to the relevant page) -- in contrast to what is written in the present article. Also, Heilbron suggests that Cunaeus achieved this alone -- and then came to tell about this to Musschenbroek (who refined the technique). This story is also confirmed in Nollet's published account, where he tells in a footnote that he received a letter from Allamand about Cunaeus and his role. And Heilbron cites additional sources to support his account. I am telling all this because I have put links to the Heilbron and Nollet sources in the article, but I am not going to try to repair the text -- because there are other claims that are not in Heilbron, and I do not how to evaluate them. Sdc870 (talk) 01:26, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

The article says he couldn't make it work with a glass of beer, not that he couldn't make it work period. But the claim is uncited. SpinningSpark 07:34, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Good solutions. Also good that Allamand gets into the story. Will be curious to see the source that supports the "beer" interpretation. There is one other part of the story that also seems important to work in. Cunaeus's "success" appears to have been achieved by ignorant accident. (This is the point about the "Rule of Dufay" in Heilbron's discussion. Usually the glass container is insulated. Cunaeus "succeeded" because he did not insulate the glass (because he did not know that this was considered the "standard procedure"). Sdc870 (talk) 11:43, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure we shouldn't just delete the claim about the beer. Maybe someone got confused with Allamand, who I see in several sources used a beer glass. SpinningSpark 14:04, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

@Sfist: who wrote this passage. Can you provide your source please? SpinningSpark 14:15, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Good account of Cunaeus' "mistake". Have also seen "beer glass" (but not "beer") so your hypothesis is plausible. Will be interesting to see if your query brings any response. Have seen a lot of accounts of this event recently, some of them discussing oil, wine spirits, but none with beer. Sdc870 (talk) 06:46, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Structuring of the Article

I introduced a "further developments" section -- to separate the events that did not involve Musschenbroek and Cunaeus. But I can see now that the "Design" section also has "further developments". Probably there is a sensible solution for how to organise and integrate these parts. For example, the current "further developments" is actually focused mostly on connecting multiple Leyden jars. Similarly, the section on "Storage of charge" was more about the historical development of explanations -- so I introduced some sections that seem meaningful. But probably more or other steps are needed. Sdc870 (talk) 16:25, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

I suggest we add something about Dalibard's experiment (proposed by Franklin) at Marly-la-Ville -- wherein lightning was collected in a Leyden Jar. and the subsequent death of Georg Wilhelm Richmann in a similar experiment. and perhaps a new section on Faraday & his discovery of the principle of a dielectric. Karxpava (talk) 19:17, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Changes to introduction

@Sdc870I: You have added some good content to the article, but I feel your edit to the introduction introduced some inaccuracies which will mislead nontechnical readers:

@Chetvorno:Thanks for feedback. Happy for your advice and assistance to try to untangle the problems. Sdc870

• "It was an early type of capacitor, originally known as a kind of condenser." It was not an early type of capacitor, it was the first type of capacitor. And although the term "condensing" was used to describe what it did, it was not originally known as a condenser; the term "condenser" came into use later, when other forms beside the jar began to be used, requiring a new name.

Chetvorno: (will take "first capacitor question in next paragraph). I am not responsible for that fragment "(originally known as a "condenser")." That has been there long before I started on this article. But I am with you on this point. Volta is usually cited as the origin of this term (around 1782, if I remember correctly). I was planning to try to work that in (given that "capacitor" does not appear until 1925 or 1926). I would be more than happy if you wanted to handle this issue. Sdc870

• "The Leyden jar is often considered the first form of capacitor..." The Leyden jar was the first form of capacitor, according to numerous sources [1], [2] including your own; this sentence implies that there is a difference of opinion.

Chetvorno: This problem arises from trying to be "faithful" to the "sources" (which I understand is a Wikipedia policy). The source that I cited says "early type" and I saw some others that also used that kind of expression, so I tried to preserve the nuance. I agree/would prefer to write "first capacitor" and there are different sources that could be used, such as your Dictionary. By the way, the first source that you cite "Drummer" -- actually refers to the Darnell article that I cited. I figured it was better to cite the actual source that Drummer cites. But then I was surprised to see that Darnell does not actually say anything about the "first". So -- I guess it is Drummer's assertion (without supporting sources). Anyway -- I am happy to just assert "first" (with supporting sources), and ignore the sources that say "early". (I do not think there is a real difference of opinion here -- probably just some authors who were uncertain, so hedged their bets with "early"). Sdc870

• "The Leyden jar is... considered the first form of capacitor, because it operates on the same principle as miniature glass dielectric capacitors produced 200 years later." It is considered the first form of capacitor because it operates on the same principle as all capacitors. Your source says that modern glass dielectric capacitors have similar construction to the Leyden jar, but that is not why the Leyden jar is considered the first form of capacitor.

Chetvorno: I think you are raising two points here. (a) about "all": Maybe I have misunderstood Darnell, which I read to imply that semiconductor diodes operate on a different principle, (b) about "first": the 200 years was not meant to support the "first" claim -- but only to show that its principle of operation has continued to be used. I do not think we are disagreeing about the "content" that should be in the text. I have only tried to remain faithful to the sources that I have. Probably you have better sources, in which case, please make appropriate adjustments. Sdc870 (talk) 09:51, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

--Chetvorno^TALK 08:40, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

There is one more change that should also be considered in the lead section -- which seems appropriate. The first versions (i.e, from Kleist, Gralath, Winckler, Musschenbroek) used a liquid, usually water, mercury or alcohol, as the inner conductor. It seems misleading to only indicate metal foil on inside and outside. I am more than happy if someone could address that point in the lead. Sdc870 (talk) 10:06, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

My feeling is that is not really necessary. The adjoining picture shows a liquid Leyden jar, and the caption says that was the first form. The liquid jars were a transitional form which is long gone. The modern meaning of a Leyden jar (which are still sold and used for teaching electrostatics) is a jar with foil electrodes. The majority of readers coming to this page are going to be school children doing science homework, and that is the kind of Leyden jar they are going to be interested in. --Chetvorno^TALK 10:53, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

See Also See Also See Als...

It looks like there's a recursive See Also entry (presumably due to a topic merge or other restructuring), as the Leiden accumulator link points to an alias that leads right back to this article. I'm not sure what it was originally referring to - whether it referring to something that eventually got folded into this article (although there's no explicit reference to it as an "accumulator") - in which case it could presumably be deleted - or if a Leiden Accumulator is actually a separate but related topic that still deserves a separate mention. 71.234.116.22 (talk) 21:12, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

My bad. I recently merged the stub Leiden accumulator into this page. I guess I missed that link. I deleted it. Thanks for catching that 71.234.116.22! --Chetvorno^TALK 23:41, 27 June 2019 (UTC)