College of Liberal Arts & Sciences
5B20.10 - Gauss's Law Demo - Faraday's Icebucket
Code Number:
References:
5B20.10
Demo Title:
Gauss's Law Demo - Faraday's Icebucket
Condition:
Good
Principle:
Gauss's Law
Area of Study:
Electricity & Magnetism
Equipment:
Van de Graaff Generator with Discharging Rod, Electroscope, Copper Bucket, and Charge Transfer Rod.
Procedure:
Place the copper ice bucket beside the Van de Graaff generator and charge. Using a small charging rod rub the inside of the sphere and then touch the electroscope. No charge should be shown. Then touch the outside of the sphere and then the electroscope. A large charge will be observed. This demo works best in the winter months as the charge will leak off the sphere fairly rapidly in high humidity.
A cool variation is to use two ice buckets. Charge one bucket and then connect the outside surface of this bucket to the outside surface of the other bucket. Each buckets will now have 1/2 the initial charge. Now disconnect and recharge one of the buckets again. This time connect the inside of the charged bucket to the outside of the uncharged bucket. All of the charge from the first bucket will be transferred to the second bucket.
- Nam H. Nguyen, Quy C. Tran, Thach A. Nguyen, Trung V. Phan, "The Effect of Charge Discretization on the Electrical Field Inside a Conductor", TPT, Vol. 62, #1, Jan. 2024, p. 29.
- Anthony Danese, "A Gauss's Law Computer Simulation in GlowScript", TPT, Vol. 60, #5, May 2022, p. 385.
- Martha Lietz, "A Potential Gauss's Law Lab", TPT, Vol. 38, # 4, Apr. 2000, p. 220.
- Christopher A. Brueningsen, "Tinkering with Gauss's Law", TPT, Vol. 32, # 1, Jan. 1994, p. 12.
- Colin Terry, "Magnetic Fields in a Slinky", TPT, Vol. 32, # 6, Nov. 1994, p. 328.
- Zvi Geller and Esther Bango, "Does Electrostatic Shielding Work Both Ways?", TPT, Vol. 32, # 1, Jan. 1994, p. 20.
- Ludwik Kowalski, "Feynman Revisited", TPT, Vol. 32, # 3, Mar. 1994, p. 133.
- P.K. Aravid, "A Quicker Proof", TPT, Vol. 32, # 6, Sept. 1994, p. 328.
- William R. Gregg, "Three Inexpensive High - Voltage Electricity Demonstrations", TPT, Vol. 30, # 8, p. 400, Oct. 1992.
- Ludwik Kowalski, "About Electrostatic Shielding", TPT, Vol. 27, # 5, May 1989, p. 366.
- R. D. Edge, "Electrostatics With Soft-Drink Cans", TPT, Vol. 22, # 6, Sept. 1984, p. 396 - 398.
- Ea-7: Freier and Anderson, A Demonstration Handbook for Physics.
- E-115: "Faraday Ice Pail", DICK and RAE Physics Demo Notebook.
- Robert A. Morse, " # 6, The Faraday Ice Pail", Teaching about Electrostatics, p. 4 - 7.
- John Henry Pepper, "Electrical Attraction", Cyclopadic Science Simplified, p. 231.
- Joseph Frick, "# 260 - Two Contrivances", Physical Technics: Or Practical Instructions for Making Experiments in Physics and the Construction of Physical Apparatus with the Most Limmited Means, p. 283.
- "Biot's Movable Hemispheres and Ball", Pike's Illustrated Catalogue of Scientific & Medical Instruments, 1984, p. 298.
- The Queen Catalogues Vol. II, Catalogue of Physical Instruments, p. 76.
Disclaimer: These demonstrations are provided only for illustrative use by persons affiliated with The University of Iowa and only under the direction of a trained instructor or physicist. The University of Iowa is not responsible for demonstrations performed by those using their own equipment or who choose to use this reference material for their own purpose. The demonstrations included here are within the public domain and can be found in materials contained in libraries, bookstores, and through electronic sources. Performing all or any portion of any of these demonstrations, with or without revisions not depicted here entails inherent risks. These risks include, without limitation, bodily injury (and possibly death), including risks to health that may be temporary or permanent and that may exacerbate a pre-existing medical condition; and property loss or damage. Anyone performing any part of these demonstrations, even with revisions, knowingly and voluntarily assumes all risks associated with them.