how does the gold leaf electroscope work?

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how does the gold leaf electroscope work?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

The gold leaf electroscope shows induction. Induction is basically electrons attracting/repelling without transfer.

When a charged rod is held near the top of the device it will attract or repel electrons within the metal rod. (For example a negatively charged rod will repel electrons from near where the rod is held and force them towards the gold leaf.) Because the gold leafs are so light, and at this point each contains a like charge, they will repel from each other.

In addition to their light weight, the gold leafs are protected from any air current that might interfere with the repulsion between the two leafs.

Hopefully this answers your question 🙂 if not maybe these will help.

if you wanted to know why the gold leafs repel when each is filled with a like charge, I don’t know enough to explain that. Though due to the link between electricity and magnetism I assume its because of magnetic properties. In a more simple view you can view each electron or each leaf as having an electric field, these fields are easier to understand visually but are still somewhat similar to the magnet analogy.

If you wanted to know how the charges move, that arises from metallic bonding. In short when metal atoms bind they’ll form a lattice in which some electrons will be free to move about the lattice. This property in metals is why they are good conductors and is also responsible for why they appear shiny.