Talk:Leyden jar

message: 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
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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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.  --ChetvornoTALK 04:38, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

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

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

message: 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.  --ChetvornoTALK 07:59, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Done --ChetvornoTALK 14:12, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Remove 'Circuit theory' section? 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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. --ChetvornoTALK 19:39, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

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

text: 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)
thread_title:  Leyden? 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Battery (of Leyden jars) Invented by? 

message: how was the electricity generated in a leyden jar?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Barrelofoil (talk • contribs) 16:49, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: 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. --ChetvornoTALK 19:48, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  question 

message: 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)
thread_title: Reference 5 is wrong

message: 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)
replies: text: 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. --ChetvornoTALK 12:40, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  comparison to modern capacitors 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Progression of Technology 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text:  who wrote this passage. Can you provide your source please? SpinningSpark 14:15, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:  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)
thread_title: Musschenbroek and Cunaeus

message: 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)
thread_title: Structuring of the Article

message: 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:  
::Thanks for feedback. Happy for your advice and assistance to try to untangle the problems. 
*"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. 
:: : (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.  
*"The Leyden jar is often considered the first form of capacitor..."  The Leyden jar was the first form of capacitor, according to numerous sources ,  including your own; this sentence implies that there is a difference of opinion. 
:: : 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").  
*"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.
::: 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)
replies: text: 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. --ChetvornoTALK 10:53, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Changes to introduction 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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! --ChetvornoTALK 23:41, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  See Also See Also See Als...