hey guys welcome back and thanks for
joining us today on the king of random
in the history of inventions one of the
greatest of all mankind is the ability
to harness and control electricity some
of the old experiments that taught us
how electricity works are really
incredible in 1745 an early version of a
capacitor was invented by Evald G von
Kleist when he accidentally gave an
electric charge to a medicine bottle a
year later a man named peter van
michigan Brooke came up with the same
invention while living in a city called
Leyden his version of the invention
became a lot more popular and was named
after the city and is now called a
Leyden jar at its most basic a Leyden
jar is an insulated container with an
inside and outside holding opposite
charges when something bridges a
connection between the two the charges
equalized and it creates an electric
shock the purpose of today’s video is to
learn how to build our own Leyden jar
charge it up using electricity and then
discharge it to get that electric shock
the materials we need for this build are
pretty simple we need a plastic bottle
some aluminum foil a nail and some tape
to build up our static charge we’re also
going to want some paper towels and a
length of PVC pipe this one’s about
three feet long the exact length isn’t
important we’ve gathered up all of our
supplies now let’s get started you can
use most any type of plastic bottle for
this experiment I prefer the type that
has straight walls because we’re going
to be wrapping aluminum foil around the
bottle and it’s easier to wrap evenly
with straight walls than if it has a lot
of curves in it first empty your bottle
[Music]
next let’s remove the label from the
bottle it might work just as well with
it still on but I think it gives it a
cleaner look if we take it off
[Music]
next let’s tear off a piece of aluminum
foil approximately the same length as
the straight portion of our bottle let’s
see if some of the glue residue on the
bottle will stick to the foil oh it does
that’s brilliant
if your bottle doesn’t have sticky
residue you can roll it up just the same
way it doesn’t need to be stuck to it
like that we have a little bit extra
foil I’m just gonna trim it off with our
foil wrapped around our bottle let’s
secure it in place with a couple of
pieces of tape there you have it we now
have a nice conductive coating on the
outside of our insulated bottle fill
your bottle almost all the way with
water leaving a gap at the top of about
an inch or two 100% pure water actually
won’t conduct electricity but most tap
water has enough minerals and impurities
in it that it will but just to be sure
let’s add a pinch of salt to make sure
that our water conducts electricity very
easily it should only take a pinch you
really don’t need much there you go with
the salt mix it into the water we now
have a very conductive liquid inside the
bottle now the last step in building our
Leyden jar is to drive our nail down
through the center of the bottle cap so
that a portion of the nail is sticking
up above the bottle but some of it is
also sticking down into the salt water
you can see that the bottom of the nail
is submerged in our salt water this will
allow a good electric current to flow
from the nail to the water and just like
that your Leyden jar is built this is
now a device that for some time can hold
an electric charge unless something
conductive connects the nail to the foil
with our Leyden jar complete it’s time
to charge it up using static electricity
a very easy and consistent way to build
a static electric charge is using paper
towel and PVC before we start using our
PVC let’s clean it off using some high
grit sandpaper to be sure that it’s free
of any oils or dirts or residue
you can see that the sandpaper is so
fine that it doesn’t even actually take
off any of the printing on the pipe but
it is removing some extra residue now
take a piece of paper towel and run it
along the length of the PVC pipe quickly
this will help build up a static
electricity charge I don’t know if you
can hear that but it’s building up a
charge fast all right with a static
charge built up in our PVC it’s time to
transfer it into our Leyden jar we’ll do
this by just passing the PVC pipe very
close to the nail it sounds like if you
rub the balloon on your hair or if
you’ve ever had one of those old see our
TV screens right when you turn it off
makes that crackling noise I’ve now
charged up the PVC and put that
electricity into our Leyden jar five or
six times now so I think it’s time for a
test to see if it will discharge the
nitrile gloves are gonna be too much of
an insulator so I’m gonna take them off
try grabbing the foil and then touching
nail to see if I get a shock oh I got a
shock just from the foil that’s not how
it’s normally supposed to go but it’s
probably good side
we’ll find out I know that was a little
bit a little bit of a shock and I jumped
too hard just because I was nervous
about whether or not it was powerful I
think it was probably not a good idea to
keep the PVC pipe so close to the bottle
it might have still had some
interference with the electric fields
and it also is possible that I had just
inadvertently built up an electric
charge in the foil itself and then when
I first touched that it discharged a
little bit so let’s try this again
[Music]
all right and it shocked me again wonder
what’s going on here
well I’ll still try touching the nail
[Music]
yeah it still got me again it is working
to some extent I’m able to hold the foil
and I get a zap when I touch the nail
but it’s also zapping me a little bit
when I grab the foil in the first place
so I’m going to try taking the foil down
by a button it’s just in case the static
charge from the PVC is also jumping onto
the foil as I pass it next to the nail
I’m gonna try and move it away from the
nail a little bit okay let’s try
charging this up again there’s five
charges and this time when I grab the
foil it’s not doing anything to me let’s
see what happens when I touch the nail
oh that was definitely a bigger shock
all right
I think what’s been happening is the
foil itself has been building up
something of a charge and since I’m
standing on the ground when I touch the
foil that charge runs through me but
when I hold the foil every time as I
charge it it keeps the same charge as me
which is a greater difference from the
charge inside the water that makes it so
when I touch the nail it give us a
bigger shock last time I charged it five
times this time I’m charging it ten all
right here goes nothing
let’s see what it does to me
[Music]
girl oh boy okay
so last time I felt in my arm that time
I felt it in my whole body like it went
like I felt it in my other arm and down
through my legs and just still there’s
big ole jump alright that’s pretty fun
it doesn’t actually hurt it’s just like
a pulse that goes through you alright
well that’s working pretty well
something else I want to try though I’m
gonna turn down the lights and see if we
can actually watch the electric spark
jump oh I saw it I hope it was on camera
that was another good Joel tiny little
spark it didn’t have a big gap to jump
over but it was there something I’m
going to try to see if we can make it a
little visible I’m going to hold another
piece of metal before I touch it instead
of touching you directly with my fingers
it might jump the gap a little bit
better that way
[Music]
good well it didn’t really jump the gap
I still had to touch the foil to the
nail I think but I still did see a spark
and when I touch it with my finger it
looked like a yellow spark touching with
the foil looked like a blue spark no
idea what the difference is there we go
we’ve charged up our Leyden jar using
some PVC and paper towel but I want to
try and take it to the next level
in a previous video we shattered a
plasma globe while it was running now
we’re going to try using this plasma
globe to see if we can charge up the
Leyden jar with it when this is turned
on if a piece of metal gets near the
bulb you can still see that purple spark
showing up I’m gonna try touching it
with my glove oh it’s like doing pretty
much nothing well it’s still getting the
spark though ooh it’s starting to heat
up just took my finger let’s see if it
it doesn’t really give you a shock it
gets warm but it doesn’t like just this
is a lot more of a feeling of
electricity well let’s see what happens
if we touch this to our Leyden jar
well it’s sparking kind of like when I
touch my finger to it I don’t know if
that’s building up the charge or not
let’s just let it go for a second and
see what happens
oh it smells like ozone wow that’s kind
of powerful well that seems like plenty
of charging to me see if it did anything
no shock from touching the foil nothing
nothing whatsoever I thought it would do
something oh well
well whatever electricity is coming out
of that it doesn’t seem to charge our
Leyden jar so I think the best way to do
it is just stick with the PVC I was kind
of hoping you would be like a
quick-acting charge just this is full oh
well whoa my favorite thing to do is you
get this bottle charge it up pretty well
about 10 passes then you get a group of
people have one person hold the bottle
on the aluminum foil and have everyone
hold hands in a circle then you have the
last person in the circle touch the nail
and everyone in the circle will feel the
jolt run through them it’s pretty
entertaining there you have it now you
know how to build yourself a Leyden jar
which is an early type of capacitor a
capacitor is similar to a battery except
that instead of discharging its
electricity slowly it dumps all of it at
once this Leyden jar capacitor is made
just by using a plastic bottle some
aluminum foil held on with tape and a
nail it’s then filled with water with a
little bit of salt added for
conductivity and charged up using the
static electricity generated with PVC
and a paper towel this is something you
can easily build an afternoon and have
fun experimenting with or you can just
use it to prank people and tell them to
touch it and see if you can get them to
do that without knowing what’s gonna
happen they’ll be in for a surprise
we tried charging up our Leyden jar
using our broken plasma globe because it
does discharge electricity in some form
but apparently it’s not anything that
will charge this out if you know of a
good experiment that you can do with a
Leyden jar let us know down in the
comments and we might try it out thanks
for joining us for this project today
and we look forward to the next one talk
to you then
this might be a very dumb experiment
I’ve charged it a little bit just in
three passes and you see what happens if
I lick the mail it’s a tiny little zap
on the surface of my tongue didn’t do
much I don’t really want to do much more
than that it sounds painful hey guys I
hope you’re having a great day you are
awesome you are appreciated and I know
everyone over here on my team is really
grateful for you thanks so much for
choosing to watch and support our videos
we’ll see you in the next one
[Music]
joining us today on the king of random
in the history of inventions one of the
greatest of all mankind is the ability
to harness and control electricity some
of the old experiments that taught us
how electricity works are really
incredible in 1745 an early version of a
capacitor was invented by Evald G von
Kleist when he accidentally gave an
electric charge to a medicine bottle a
year later a man named peter van
michigan Brooke came up with the same
invention while living in a city called
Leyden his version of the invention
became a lot more popular and was named
after the city and is now called a
Leyden jar at its most basic a Leyden
jar is an insulated container with an
inside and outside holding opposite
charges when something bridges a
connection between the two the charges
equalized and it creates an electric
shock the purpose of today’s video is to
learn how to build our own Leyden jar
charge it up using electricity and then
discharge it to get that electric shock
the materials we need for this build are
pretty simple we need a plastic bottle
some aluminum foil a nail and some tape
to build up our static charge we’re also
going to want some paper towels and a
length of PVC pipe this one’s about
three feet long the exact length isn’t
important we’ve gathered up all of our
supplies now let’s get started you can
use most any type of plastic bottle for
this experiment I prefer the type that
has straight walls because we’re going
to be wrapping aluminum foil around the
bottle and it’s easier to wrap evenly
with straight walls than if it has a lot
of curves in it first empty your bottle
[Music]
next let’s remove the label from the
bottle it might work just as well with
it still on but I think it gives it a
cleaner look if we take it off
[Music]
next let’s tear off a piece of aluminum
foil approximately the same length as
the straight portion of our bottle let’s
see if some of the glue residue on the
bottle will stick to the foil oh it does
that’s brilliant
if your bottle doesn’t have sticky
residue you can roll it up just the same
way it doesn’t need to be stuck to it
like that we have a little bit extra
foil I’m just gonna trim it off with our
foil wrapped around our bottle let’s
secure it in place with a couple of
pieces of tape there you have it we now
have a nice conductive coating on the
outside of our insulated bottle fill
your bottle almost all the way with
water leaving a gap at the top of about
an inch or two 100% pure water actually
won’t conduct electricity but most tap
water has enough minerals and impurities
in it that it will but just to be sure
let’s add a pinch of salt to make sure
that our water conducts electricity very
easily it should only take a pinch you
really don’t need much there you go with
the salt mix it into the water we now
have a very conductive liquid inside the
bottle now the last step in building our
Leyden jar is to drive our nail down
through the center of the bottle cap so
that a portion of the nail is sticking
up above the bottle but some of it is
also sticking down into the salt water
you can see that the bottom of the nail
is submerged in our salt water this will
allow a good electric current to flow
from the nail to the water and just like
that your Leyden jar is built this is
now a device that for some time can hold
an electric charge unless something
conductive connects the nail to the foil
with our Leyden jar complete it’s time
to charge it up using static electricity
a very easy and consistent way to build
a static electric charge is using paper
towel and PVC before we start using our
PVC let’s clean it off using some high
grit sandpaper to be sure that it’s free
of any oils or dirts or residue
you can see that the sandpaper is so
fine that it doesn’t even actually take
off any of the printing on the pipe but
it is removing some extra residue now
take a piece of paper towel and run it
along the length of the PVC pipe quickly
this will help build up a static
electricity charge I don’t know if you
can hear that but it’s building up a
charge fast all right with a static
charge built up in our PVC it’s time to
transfer it into our Leyden jar we’ll do
this by just passing the PVC pipe very
close to the nail it sounds like if you
rub the balloon on your hair or if
you’ve ever had one of those old see our
TV screens right when you turn it off
makes that crackling noise I’ve now
charged up the PVC and put that
electricity into our Leyden jar five or
six times now so I think it’s time for a
test to see if it will discharge the
nitrile gloves are gonna be too much of
an insulator so I’m gonna take them off
try grabbing the foil and then touching
nail to see if I get a shock oh I got a
shock just from the foil that’s not how
it’s normally supposed to go but it’s
probably good side
we’ll find out I know that was a little
bit a little bit of a shock and I jumped
too hard just because I was nervous
about whether or not it was powerful I
think it was probably not a good idea to
keep the PVC pipe so close to the bottle
it might have still had some
interference with the electric fields
and it also is possible that I had just
inadvertently built up an electric
charge in the foil itself and then when
I first touched that it discharged a
little bit so let’s try this again
[Music]
all right and it shocked me again wonder
what’s going on here
well I’ll still try touching the nail
[Music]
yeah it still got me again it is working
to some extent I’m able to hold the foil
and I get a zap when I touch the nail
but it’s also zapping me a little bit
when I grab the foil in the first place
so I’m going to try taking the foil down
by a button it’s just in case the static
charge from the PVC is also jumping onto
the foil as I pass it next to the nail
I’m gonna try and move it away from the
nail a little bit okay let’s try
charging this up again there’s five
charges and this time when I grab the
foil it’s not doing anything to me let’s
see what happens when I touch the nail
oh that was definitely a bigger shock
all right
I think what’s been happening is the
foil itself has been building up
something of a charge and since I’m
standing on the ground when I touch the
foil that charge runs through me but
when I hold the foil every time as I
charge it it keeps the same charge as me
which is a greater difference from the
charge inside the water that makes it so
when I touch the nail it give us a
bigger shock last time I charged it five
times this time I’m charging it ten all
right here goes nothing
let’s see what it does to me
[Music]
girl oh boy okay
so last time I felt in my arm that time
I felt it in my whole body like it went
like I felt it in my other arm and down
through my legs and just still there’s
big ole jump alright that’s pretty fun
it doesn’t actually hurt it’s just like
a pulse that goes through you alright
well that’s working pretty well
something else I want to try though I’m
gonna turn down the lights and see if we
can actually watch the electric spark
jump oh I saw it I hope it was on camera
that was another good Joel tiny little
spark it didn’t have a big gap to jump
over but it was there something I’m
going to try to see if we can make it a
little visible I’m going to hold another
piece of metal before I touch it instead
of touching you directly with my fingers
it might jump the gap a little bit
better that way
[Music]
good well it didn’t really jump the gap
I still had to touch the foil to the
nail I think but I still did see a spark
and when I touch it with my finger it
looked like a yellow spark touching with
the foil looked like a blue spark no
idea what the difference is there we go
we’ve charged up our Leyden jar using
some PVC and paper towel but I want to
try and take it to the next level
in a previous video we shattered a
plasma globe while it was running now
we’re going to try using this plasma
globe to see if we can charge up the
Leyden jar with it when this is turned
on if a piece of metal gets near the
bulb you can still see that purple spark
showing up I’m gonna try touching it
with my glove oh it’s like doing pretty
much nothing well it’s still getting the
spark though ooh it’s starting to heat
up just took my finger let’s see if it
it doesn’t really give you a shock it
gets warm but it doesn’t like just this
is a lot more of a feeling of
electricity well let’s see what happens
if we touch this to our Leyden jar
well it’s sparking kind of like when I
touch my finger to it I don’t know if
that’s building up the charge or not
let’s just let it go for a second and
see what happens
oh it smells like ozone wow that’s kind
of powerful well that seems like plenty
of charging to me see if it did anything
no shock from touching the foil nothing
nothing whatsoever I thought it would do
something oh well
well whatever electricity is coming out
of that it doesn’t seem to charge our
Leyden jar so I think the best way to do
it is just stick with the PVC I was kind
of hoping you would be like a
quick-acting charge just this is full oh
well whoa my favorite thing to do is you
get this bottle charge it up pretty well
about 10 passes then you get a group of
people have one person hold the bottle
on the aluminum foil and have everyone
hold hands in a circle then you have the
last person in the circle touch the nail
and everyone in the circle will feel the
jolt run through them it’s pretty
entertaining there you have it now you
know how to build yourself a Leyden jar
which is an early type of capacitor a
capacitor is similar to a battery except
that instead of discharging its
electricity slowly it dumps all of it at
once this Leyden jar capacitor is made
just by using a plastic bottle some
aluminum foil held on with tape and a
nail it’s then filled with water with a
little bit of salt added for
conductivity and charged up using the
static electricity generated with PVC
and a paper towel this is something you
can easily build an afternoon and have
fun experimenting with or you can just
use it to prank people and tell them to
touch it and see if you can get them to
do that without knowing what’s gonna
happen they’ll be in for a surprise
we tried charging up our Leyden jar
using our broken plasma globe because it
does discharge electricity in some form
but apparently it’s not anything that
will charge this out if you know of a
good experiment that you can do with a
Leyden jar let us know down in the
comments and we might try it out thanks
for joining us for this project today
and we look forward to the next one talk
to you then
this might be a very dumb experiment
I’ve charged it a little bit just in
three passes and you see what happens if
I lick the mail it’s a tiny little zap
on the surface of my tongue didn’t do
much I don’t really want to do much more
than that it sounds painful hey guys I
hope you’re having a great day you are
awesome you are appreciated and I know
everyone over here on my team is really
grateful for you thanks so much for
choosing to watch and support our videos
we’ll see you in the next one
[Music]
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