Question

Draw a labelled diagram of a gold-leaf electroscope. Describe how you will use it to detect a charge, measure a charge, and find the nature of the charge.

Answer 1

Gold-leaf Electroscope

Process to Detect and Measure Charge

If a charged body (for example, ebonite rod) is touched to the metal disc of the gold-leaf electroscope, the metal strips of the electroscope gets charged by conduction. They repel each other and open up. In this way, we can detect whether an object is charged or not.

Process to Know the Nature of Charge

To check whether a body has a positive or negative charge, we need a charged electroscope with a known charge. We need to touch the charged body to the metal disc of the electroscope. If the divergence of the leaves increases, the body has a charge similar to that of the charged electroscope; and if the divergence of the leaves decreases, the body has a charge opposite to that of the electroscope.