In the early research on the phenomenon of electricity, william Gilbert, the first British doctor to make a systematic study, said in his article: "Use any metal as an indicator ... At the other end of the indicator, close to a gently rubbed amber or smooth gem, the indicator will turn immediately." He refuted many superstitious views about electricity through a large number of experiments, and found that not only rubbed amber has the properties of attracting light and small objects, but also other similar substances. 1660, Gehrig of Fort Madre invented the first friction motor. He made a rotatable object shaped like a globe out of sulfur, rubbed the dry sphere with his dry palm and stopped it to get electricity. Gelik's friction motor has been continuously improved and played a very important role in electrostatic experiments.
/kloc-in the middle of the 0/8th century, electrical experiments gradually became popular, and many people in France and Holland performed in public. 173 1 year, the British priest Gray found through experiments that the electricity generated by friction can be kept on glass, silk and other objects without flowing, while some objects, such as metals, can not generate electricity through friction, but can guide the electricity generated by friction with metal wires in the rooms around the garden, and the metal wires still attract light and small objects at the end. For the first time, he distinguished between conductor and insulator, and thought that electricity was one. Electricity is a fluid, and fluids such as water can be stored in containers. 1745, German priest Kempster tried to introduce electricity into the bottle with nails. He was obviously shocked when he held the bottle in one hand and touched the nail in the other. 1746, Peter von Mu Xin Brock, a professor at Leiden University in the Netherlands, accidentally discovered the same phenomenon. In his own words, "My arms and body have an invisible sense of terror. In short, I think my life is over. " In this way, Mu Xin Brock announced his unexpected discovery that electric energy can be stored by putting charged objects in glass bottles.
Mu Xin Brock's discovery gave birth to the first container for storing charge in the history of electricity. It's a glass bottle with tin foil on the inside and outside. The tin foil in the bottle is connected with a metal rod through a metal chain, and the upper end of the metal rod is a metal ball, because it was invented by Leiden City. That's why it's called Leyden bottle. This is the original capacitor Leyden bottle, which soon aroused strong repercussions in Europe. Electricians not only did a lot of experiments with them, but also did a lot of demonstrations. Some people use them to ignite alcohol and gunpowder. One of the most spectacular is the performance of Frenchman Nolette in front of the Paris Cathedral. Nolette invited members of Louis XV's royal family to watch the performance of Leyden Bottle. He made 700 monks stand hand in hand in a row with a total length of 900 feet (about 275 meters). Then, Nolette asked the monks in the front row to hold the Leyden bottle with their hands, and the monks in the back row held the fuse of the bottle. In an instant, 700 monks jumped up almost at the same time because of electric shock, and everyone present was dumbfounded. Nolette showed people the great power of electricity with convincing evidence.
The invention of Leiden bottle gave physics a method to obtain a large amount of charge and study its properties for the first time. 1746, a physicist named collinson in London, England presented Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia, USA with a Leyden bottle, and introduced the use method to him in his letter, which led to Franklin's famous 1752 Philadelphia experiment. He drew the "sky electricity" with a kite and collected it in a Leiden bottle, thus understanding that "sky electricity" and "earth electricity" were originally the same thing.
/kloc-In the late 8th century, Bennett invented the electroscope, which has been in use ever since. It can approximately measure the charge on an object. In addition, in 1785, Coulomb invented the torsion balance, used it to measure electrostatic force, deduced Coulomb's law, and extended this law to magnetic force measurement. After scientists used electroscope and torsion balance, the research on electrostatic phenomenon moved from qualitative to quantitative.