A Leyden jar is a device that was used during the 18th century to store electrical charge. The jar was originally developed

and discovered in the sense that its construction was formalized and in that it was written about

in scientific literature, accepted by the scientific gatekeepers of the day, back in October of 1745.

A Dutch scientist named Ewald George von Kleist was attempting to replicate an experiment

that had been performed by another scientist named George Matthias Bose, who had become known

for his development of an insulated conductor, which allowed him to temporarily store static charges

by insulating them from other surfaces to which those charges might

otherwise escape. Boes developed an experiment through which he would set spirits, set alcohol,

a light, using static, created using an early electrostatic generator, which at the time

typically involved some kind of rubber, glass, plastic, or cloth, being rubbed

rapidly against another piece of such material, both of them non-conductive, and therefore

capable of creating static electricity as a consequence of this type of friction.

This is similar to what happens when you rub a balloon against your sweater. Same principles.

Von Kleist thought that this was really neat and wanted to set alcohol on fire,

using nothing but friction, too. Elsewhere, another Dutch scientist, this one named

Peter von Mushenbroke, was also inspired by Bose's experiment, and was likewise

trying to replicate Boz's success,

which was predicated, by the way, on the theory that electricity was a type of fluid,

and that if he could make some tweaks to Boz's model, he could perhaps capture some of this

electric fluid rather than using it to set alcohol on fire. Muschenbroke and Von Kleist were working at around the same time,

and again both working from the same previous work.

But von Kleist was the first to figure out that by filling a small medicine bottle with alcohol,

...