Question

A gold leaf electroscope is negatively charged and the leaves are observed to diverged by a certain amount. A beam of X-ray is allowed to fall upon the electroscope for a short period. The effect is as follows

• A. the leaves will diverge further
• B. there will be no change in the divergence of leaves
• C. the leaves will collapse
• D. the gold leaves will melt

Answer 1

The correct option is C the leaves will collapse

Since, the gold leaf electroscope is negatively charged , when the beam of x-ray is allowed to fall upon the electroscope, since x-rays are the ionising radiations, it will ionise the air surrounding gold leaf electroscope. As a result, negatively charged leaves would attract the positive ions from the surrounding air and would then discharge. As now, there is no charge on the gold leaves, the leaves would collapse.