Musschenbroek, Pieter (Petrus) van
From The Encyclopedia of Earth
August 18, 2006, 6:38 pm
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Pieter (Petrus) van Musschenbroek (1692-1761), a Dutch physicist and inventor of the Leyden jar (1745), a device for storing electrical charge. The Leyden jar is constructed by placing water in a metal container suspended by insulating silk cords, and placing a brass wire through a cork into the water. The same device was invented independently by Ewald Jurgens von Kleist at about the same time, but not published. Musschenbroek’s experiments provided some of the first scientific studies of electrical charge and its properties. In 1729, he was the first to use the word "physics".
