Experiment 1

Electrostatics
by
Julio Francisco
PHY 2092 - E4
Experiment Performed: 8/22/2014
Report Submitted: 8/29/2014
Lab Partner:
Nigel Murillo
Instructor:
Darren Palcek

Introduction:
This experiment was undertaken to study the phenomenon of electrostatics using a PASCO Basic
Electrostatics System. In this experiment, one would measure the amount of voltage generated
from rubbing magic wands together thats applied to the cages of a faraday ice pail. Since this
experiment was more oriented toward collecting data than statistically analyzing data, there would
be no discussion on the deviation

Discussion:
Type of Wand

Voltage measured after

rubbing the two wands,
touching the shield w/ one
hand, and lowering 1 wand
without
touching the inner
cage.

Voltage measured after

rubbing the two wands,
touching the shield w/ one
hand, and lowering the wand
with
touching the inner cage.

Blue

-75

White

75

Table 1. Voltage produced by magic wands after performing specific gestures. Measurement were
recorded using an electrometer.
Type of wand

Voltage produced from

sampling at the point directly
opposite
from the first sphere

Voltage produced from

sampling at the point directly
near
the first sphere

Aluminum Wand

-13

Table 2. Voltage produced from sampling at a particular area on the second sphere. Voltage were
measured with an electrometer.
Type of Wand

Voltage produced from

sampling at the point directly
opposite
from the first sphere

Voltage produced from

sampling at the point directly
near
from the first sphere

Aluminum Wand

-10

-5

Table 3. Voltage produced from sampling at a specific location on the second sphere in which the
second sphere was 60 cm away from the first sphere and connected to a yellow ground
connector.
In the following experiment, one had to rub two wands together. In rubbing the two wands
together, electrons were transferred from one wand to the second wand. As a result of
transferring electrons, the second wand becomes negatively charged, while the first wand became
positively charged. An unintentional effect of producing such electrical charges is that the objects
will experience repulsion to objects with the like charge and attraction to objects of unliked charge.

Furthermore, the experiment required the investigator to touch the inner wall of the faraday
ice pail (also known as the pail). Table 1 show that zero voltage was recorded when touching the
pail with the magic wand. Having a recorded value of zero voltage can be best explained by the
process called induction. Induction is the phenomenon in which the distribution of electric charges
on an object is influenced by the electric charges on another object. Therefore, when placing an
negatively charged object close to a neutral charged object, the electrons are repelled away from
the negatively charged object, leaving a positively charged side to interact with the negatively
charged object. A similar phenomenon can occur when placing a positively charged object near a
neutrally charged object; except that electrons will be attracted to the positively charged object. In
this experiment, the wand possessed a negative charged, while the pail was neutrally charged.
When touching the pail with the wand, the electrons were repelled, allowing the negatively charged
wand to interact with the positively charged side of the pail. The positive and negative charged
objects cancel each other. As a result, a reading of zero voltage was recorded (see figure 1)

The procedure also ask the investigator to place the second wand into the pail. Initially, the first
4

wand gave a reading of -75 volts; however, the second wand recorded +75 volts. One can assume
that during the of rubbing process of both wands electrons were transferred from to one wand to
the other. As a result of such transfer, one wand would generate a positive voltage value while the
other one would produce a negative voltage.
Furthermore, the procedure required the investigator to insert both wands into the pail at
the same time. Zero volt was recorded by the electrometer. Such result can be explained by the
same principle as previous trials in which one wand gained electrons while the other lose electrons
during the process of rubbing each other. In addition, when placing both into the pail, both charges
from the wands would cancel each other out leading to a recording of zero voltage.
In the next set of experiment, two conducting spheres were used to further investigate the
phenomenon of charging by induction. During the investigation, it was discovered that the polarity
charge was located near the second sphere and therefore the charge density was located at the far
side of the second sphere. In other words, when placing two conducting spheres near each other,
the electrons travel to the far side of the sphere due to repulsion, causing the far side of the second
sphere to gain charge density. As a consequence to the repulsion, the near side gains polarity
charge.
There are couple of errors that can occur in this experiment. One error was the design of
the experiment. Since this experiment was designed as an ideal scenario, one failed to account
factors such as the humidity and movement of air. The humidity and the movement of air provide
a way for charged particles to travel. In other word, electrons are carried away by air. In such
case, the movement of charged particles can lower the charge of the wands leading to to a lower
voltage than expected. In spite of such case, this systematic intrinsic error is negligible.

Overall, the experiment was successful since the results followed a predicted trend. For
example, one would expected that the the one of the wands would produce a negative charged
while the other would produce a positive value of equal value.

Conclusion:
The following experiment was undertaken to study the phenomenon of electrostatic by
measuring the voltage generate from rubbing two magic wands which were applied contact to a
faraday ice pail. Overall, the experiment was a success due to consistent results with the expected
outcome.