- #1
edgarpokemon
- 93
- 1
Homework Statement
hi, in my physics lab we did an expirement where we had to use an vernier electrostatic kit. So it consisted of placing a metal can inside a metal cage, and both were attached to an plastic disk, and below was a metal plate which was used for grounding. A black wire was connected from the cage to the metal plate, and a red wire was attached from the metal can to a charge reader, which was connected to read the charges. I also had a blue wire in my wrist and it was also connected to the metal plate. my question is this, we rubbed two charge seperators, one white and one gray, and we put the white seperator inside the can, resulting in a positive reading. And then i touched the metal can with my finger resulting in a negative reading (my teacher said that we did something wrong it should have a reading of 0, but that is not important, we only have to explain what happened. Then i released my finger from the can, and nothing happened. then i released the white charger from the metal can, and the reading become more negative, but why?
Homework Equations
The Attempt at a Solution
what i think is that the white charger seperator became negative charged when i rubbed it with the gray one, and when i put the white seperator inside the can, the electrons from the metal can moved away from the metal can through the black wire and to the metal plate. So the metal can became positively charged, resulting in a positive reading. when i touched the metal can, my body transferred electrons to the metal can to neutralize it, which should have resulted in a 0 charge. then when i released my finger, nothing happened (that is easy to understand). but when i released the white charger, a negative reading resulted. but why did it became more negative? is it because more electrons moved to the metal can from the metal plate? help!