question 63

The most important devises used to study electric energy in the 17th and 18th century were the Ledyen Jar and the Wimshurst machine. The Ledyen jar was discovered first in 1745, by Pieter van Musschenbroek. It was the first device that was able to store large amounts of electrical energy. With in a year of its creation, William Watson made some improvements on the constriction of the machine. It is a cylindrical container, made out of an insulator, with a layer of metal foil on either side of the cylinder. The outer side of the cylinder is grounded, while the inner side is given a charge. This enables the container to store electrical energy. The Wimshurst machine was created in the 1880s, by James Wimshurst. Unlike the Ledyen jar, the Wimshurst machine generates electrical energy, opposed to storing it. It is a machine consisting of two large contra-rotating discs that are mounted in a vertical plane, with two cross bars with metallic combs/brushes and a spark gap that is formed by two metallic spheres. The machine generates high voltages through induction. Within the machine there are quadrants of positively and negatively charged space, as the discs rotate, the metallic combs conducts the negative and positive charges away. Before this occurs, the machine already has an imbalance of charges, from human contact and such while it was being set up, and running the machine merely amplifies that imbalance.