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Faraday's ice pail experiment is a simple electrostatics experiment performed in 1843 by British scientist Michael Faraday [1] [2] that demonstrates the effect of electrostatic induction on a conducting container. For a container, Faraday used a metal pail made to hold ice, which gave the experiment its name. [3]
The first electroscope was a pivoted needle (called the versorium), invented by British physician William Gilbert around 1600. [1] [2] The pith-ball electroscope and the gold-leaf electroscope are two classical types of electroscope [2] that are still used in physics education to demonstrate the principles of electrostatics.
The gold-leaf electroscope was one of the instruments used to indicate electric charge. [1] It is still used for science demonstrations but has been superseded in most applications by electronic measuring instruments.
This is part of the electrical induction process, and is an example of the related "Faraday's ice bucket". Also, the idea of bringing small amounts of charge into the center of a large metal object with a large net charge, as happens in Kelvin's water dropper, relies on the same physics as in the operation of a van de Graaff generator .
English: Diagram of electric fields in Faraday's ice pail experiment.A charged object (small sphere) is placed inside a conductive metal shell (large sphere).The electrostatic field of the interior charge causes the mobile charges in the metal to separate, inducing a positive charge on the inner surface of the shell, and a negative charge on the outer surface.
Electrostatic machines are typically used in science classrooms to safely demonstrate electrical forces and high voltage phenomena. The elevated potential differences achieved have been also used for a variety of practical applications, such as operating X-ray tubes, particle accelerators, spectroscopy, medical applications, sterilization of food, and nuclear physics experiments.
Gilbert used the versorium to test whether different materials were "elektrics" (insulators, in modern terms) or non-"elektrics" ().While he didn't devise a theory to explain his findings, it was a good example of how science was starting to change by incorporating empirical studies at the dawn of the Age of Reason. [4]
In the history of physics, a line of force in Michael Faraday's extended sense is synonymous with James Clerk Maxwell's line of induction. [1] According to J.J. Thomson, Faraday usually discusses lines of force as chains of polarized particles in a dielectric, yet sometimes Faraday discusses them as having an existence all their own as in stretching across a vacuum. [2]