A Leyden jar stores a high-voltage electric charge (from an external source) between electrical conductors on the inside and outside of a glass jar. This was an improvement over Hauksbee's glass sphere, and gave its inventor a major shock. The same device was independently invented by a German physicist von Kleist. Named after the inventor's University of Leiden.
A visual chronology of Asimov's ~1500 scientific inventions and discoveries.
