Corbett's electrostatic machine is a static electricity generating device that was made by the Shaker physician Thomas Corbett in 1810. Intended to treat rheumatism, [1] the device built up a static charge and stored it in a Leyden jar, an early type of capacitor.
Corbett was a medical physician for the Shakers, a religious group of colonial America. He was a botanist and preferred herbal medicines to bloodletting. [2] His machine was hand-operated. Rotating a glass cylinder in contact with a silk pad caused a static charge to accumulate on the cylinder. A metal comb collected this charge, which was then stored in a Leyden jar. From the jar, the electrical charge could then be released into the patient, producing a shock akin to "touching a doorknob after walking across carpet in dry weather". [3]
A Leyden jar is an electrical component that stores a high-voltage electric charge between electrical conductors on the inside and outside of a glass jar. It typically consists of a glass jar with metal foil cemented to the inside and the outside surfaces, and a metal terminal projecting vertically through the jar lid to make contact with the inner foil. It was the original form of the capacitor.
Timeline of electromagnetism and classical optics lists, within the history of electromagnetism, the associated theories, technology, and events.
Electrostatic discharge (ESD) is a sudden and momentary flow of electric current between two electrically charged objects caused by contact, an electrical short or dielectric breakdown. A buildup of static electricity can be caused by tribocharging or by electrostatic induction. The ESD occurs when differently-charged objects are brought close together or when the dielectric between them breaks down, often creating a visible spark.
Capacitance is the capability of a material object or device to store electric charge. It is measured by the charge in response to a difference in electric potential, expressed as the ratio of those quantities. Commonly recognized are two closely related notions of capacitance: self capacitance and mutual capacitance. An object that can be electrically charged exhibits self capacitance, for which the electric potential is measured between the object and ground. Mutual capacitance is measured between two components, and is particularly important in the operation of the capacitor, an elementary linear electronic component designed to add capacitance to an electric circuit.
The Wimshurst machine or Wimshurst influence machine is an electrostatic generator, a machine for generating high voltages developed between 1880 and 1883 by British inventor James Wimshurst (1832–1903).
Static electricity is an imbalance of electric charges within or on the surface of a material or between materials. The charge remains until it is able to move away by means of an electric current or electrical discharge. Static electricity is named in contrast with current electricity, where the electric charge flows through an electrical conductor or space, and transmits energy.
The Selectron was an early form of digital computer memory developed by Jan A. Rajchman and his group at the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) under the direction of Vladimir K. Zworykin. It was a vacuum tube that stored digital data as electrostatic charges using technology similar to the Williams tube storage device. The team was never able to produce a commercially viable form of Selectron before magnetic-core memory became almost universal.
Xerography is a dry photocopying technique. Originally called electrophotography, it was renamed xerography—from the Greek: [n] roots ξηρόςxeros, meaning "dry" and -γραφία-graphia, meaning "writing"—to emphasize that unlike reproduction techniques then in use such as cyanotype, the process of xerography used no liquid chemicals.
Electrostatic induction, also known as "electrostatic influence" or simply "influence" in Europe and Latin America, is a redistribution of electric charge in an object that is caused by the influence of nearby charges. In the presence of a charged body, an insulated conductor develops a positive charge on one end and a negative charge on the other end. Induction was discovered by British scientist John Canton in 1753 and Swedish professor Johan Carl Wilcke in 1762. Electrostatic generators, such as the Wimshurst machine, the Van de Graaff generator and the electrophorus, use this principle. See also Stephen Gray in this context. Due to induction, the electrostatic potential (voltage) is constant at any point throughout a conductor. Electrostatic induction is also responsible for the attraction of light nonconductive objects, such as balloons, paper or styrofoam scraps, to static electric charges. Electrostatic induction laws apply in dynamic situations as far as the quasistatic approximation is valid.
An electrostatic generator, or electrostatic machine, is an electrical generator that produces static electricity, or electricity at high voltage and low continuous current. The knowledge of static electricity dates back to the earliest civilizations, but for millennia it remained merely an interesting and mystifying phenomenon, without a theory to explain its behavior and often confused with magnetism. By the end of the 17th century, researchers had developed practical means of generating electricity by friction, but the development of electrostatic machines did not begin in earnest until the 18th century, when they became fundamental instruments in the studies about the new science of electricity.
The Elekiter is the Japanese name for a type of generator of static electricity used for electric experiments in the 18th century. In Japan, Hiraga Gennai presented his own elekiter in 1776, derived from an elekiter from Holland. The elekiter consists of a small box that uses the power of friction to generate electricity and store it.
August Joseph Ignaz Toepler was a German chemist and physicist known for his experiments in electrostatics.
The Kelvin water dropper, invented by Scottish scientist William Thomson in 1867, is a type of electrostatic generator. Kelvin referred to the device as his water-dropping condenser. The apparatus is variously called the Kelvin hydroelectric generator, the Kelvin electrostatic generator, or Lord Kelvin's thunderstorm. The device uses falling water to generate voltage differences by electrostatic induction occurring between interconnected, oppositely charged systems. This eventually leads to an electric arc discharging in the form of a spark. It is used in physics education to demonstrate the principles of electrostatics.
Electrochemistry, a branch of chemistry, went through several changes during its evolution from early principles related to magnets in the early 16th and 17th centuries, to complex theories involving conductivity, electric charge and mathematical methods. The term electrochemistry was used to describe electrical phenomena in the late 19th and 20th centuries. In recent decades, electrochemistry has become an area of current research, including research in batteries and fuel cells, preventing corrosion of metals, the use of electrochemical cells to remove refractory organics and similar contaminants in wastewater electrocoagulation and improving techniques in refining chemicals with electrolysis and electrophoresis.
Pieter van Musschenbroek was a Dutch scientist. He was a professor in Duisburg, Utrecht, and Leiden, where he held positions in mathematics, philosophy, medicine, and astronomy. He is credited with the invention of the first capacitor in 1746: the Leyden jar. He performed pioneering work on the buckling of compressed struts. Musschenbroek was also one of the first scientists (1729) to provide detailed descriptions of testing machines for tension, compression, and flexure testing. An early example of a problem in dynamic plasticity was described in the 1739 paper.
An antistatic bag is a bag used for storing electronic components, which are prone to damage caused by electrostatic discharge (ESD).
Franklin bells are an early demonstration of electric charge designed to work with a Leyden jar or a Lightning rod. Franklin bells are only a qualitative indicator of electric charge and were used for simple demonstrations rather than research. The bells are an adaptation to the first device that converted electrical energy into mechanical energy in the form of continuous mechanical motion, in this case, the moving of a bell clapper back and forth between two oppositely charged bells.
John Cuthbertson was an English instrument maker and inventor that lived from 1768 until roughly 1796 in Amsterdam.
Franklin's electrostatic machine is a high-voltage static electricity-generating device used by Benjamin Franklin in the mid-18th century for research into electrical phenomena. Its key components are a glass globe which turned on an axis via a crank, a cloth pad in contact with the spinning globe, a set of metal needles to conduct away the charge developed on the globe by its friction with the pad, and a Leyden jar – a high-voltage capacitor – to accumulate the charge. Franklin's experiments with the machine eventually led to new theories about electricity and inventing the lightning rod.
Georg Matthias Bose, also known as Mathias Bose, was a famous electrical experimenter in the early days of the development of electrostatics. He is credited with being the first to develop a way of temporarily storing static charges by using an insulated conductor. His demonstrations and experiments raised the interests of the German scientific community and the public in the development of electrical research.
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