Electrostatic Charges Lab

Procedure B: After the white wand touched the basket, what was the polarity of the basket? Did the basket gain or lose electrons? Where did electrons go or come from?

Charged of pail was increased. Electrons from the wand transferred to the pail through contacts. The wand lost some of its positive charge to the pail so it increased.

When using the white wand: Did the ice pail gain or lose electrons during the charging by induction process? Where did the electrons go or come from?

Pail became negative. Changed because of movement of electrons not any sort of loss of electrons or transfer of electrons.

When using the dark wand: Did the ice pail gain or lose electrons during the charging by induction process? Where did the electrons go or come from?

Pail became positive due to movement of electrons. Negative electrons moved away from negative wand. No transfer of electrons occurred or loss or gain of them.

(Procedure A) After the rubbing process, what was the net overall charge of the two wands?

Should still be zero since electron numbers have not changed overall. The two wands cancel one another out with the electron that have been transferred between them.

Procedure B: After the dark wand touched the basket, what was the polarity of the basket? Did the basket gain or lose electrons during contact with the dark wand? Where did electrons go?

The basket took on a negative charge, charge was decreased. The dark wand stole electrons from the pail since it had a negative charge.

Procedure B: When a charged object touches an initially neutral object, the neutral object acquires a charge. How does the polarity acquired by the initially neutral object compare to the polarity of the charged object that touched it?

The neutral object will take on the charge of the charged object that it came into contact with. The other object is trying to become neutral so positive object will give up electrons and make neutral object positively charged. Negative object will steal electrons from neutral object to try and become neutral.

(Procedure A) Explain how this experiment demonstrates the law of conservation of charge.

The total amount of electrons is conserved. None of the electron were lost, only exchanged between the two wands. The exchange is apparent because of the charge created on the wands, but the conservation of electrons is apparent because when put together in the basket, there is no charge/its neutral. The lack of charge observed together indicates that electron counts have not changed overall even if electron counts within each wand have changed.

(Procedure A) What is the evidence that the rubbing process gave each wand an electric charge?

When put into the basket separately, a charge was observed on the wands.

Procedure B:Before the white wand touched the basket, what was the polarity of the white wand? What was the state of the basket?

White wand was positive before it touched the basket. The basket was originally neutral, but after charge from the white wand was introduced, it became charged.

(Procedure A) The charge detected on the white wand along is

negative

Procedure B: After inserting the dark charge producer into the inner basket and letting it touch the basket- the charge detected is:

negative

Procedure C: After grounding the ice pail and removing the wand: The polarity of the charge on the pail is

negative

Procedure C: Repetition with the dark charge producer: The polarity of the charge on the dark wand is

negative

(Procedure A) After rubbing, with wands still in the basket, but not touching: The charge detected is

neutral

(Procedure A) While rubbing the two charge producers together inside the basket: The charge detected is

neutral

(Procedure A) The charge detected on the white wand along is

positive

Procedure B: After letting the charge producer touch the wall of the basket- the charge detected is:

positive

Procedure B: After placing the white charge producer in the inner basket- the charge detected is:

positive

Procedure C: Repetition with the dark charge producer: After the dark wand is removed, the polarity of the charge on the pail is

positive

Procedure C: Without letting the wand touch the ice pail: The polarity of the charge on the white wand is

positive

Procedure C: At the end of the process, how does the charge acquired by the pail compare to the polarity of the charge on the wand that was used?

the charge on the pail is the opposite of the charge on the wand.

(Procedure A) the two wands were being rubbed against each other, what was their overall net charge?

zero since electron numbers will not change.