Question

In a gold leaf electroscope, the degree of divergence of gold leaves is an indicator of?

Answer 1

Divergence in gold leaf electroscope.

1. A gold leaf electroscope is a device that helps to check the presence of electric charge and identify its nature.
2. A gold leaf electroscope is made up of a conducting rod that vertically passes through a rubber stopper fitted in the mouth of a glass jar.
3. The lower end of the rod is connected to two thin gold leaves.
4. Conducting nature of the rod allows the charge to flow to the leaves.
5. A metal knob is attached to the upper end of the rod.
6. When a charged body is brought near and touched with the metal knob, the charge of the body flows down to the leaves with the help of conducting rod.
7. The leaves diverge due to the repulsive forces between like charges present in the leaves.
8. This separation is directly proportional to the amount of charge transferred by the object to the leaves.
9. The separation does not depend on the nature of the charge i.e. positive or negative.
10. The degree of divergence is the angle between the charged gold leaves.
11. The greater the charge amount on the leaf greater will be the repulsion between the leaves and thus corresponds to a large degree of divergence.
12. Hence, this degree of divergence depends on the amount of charge received by the gold leaves.

Hence, the degree of divergence is an indicator of the amount of charge transferred to the leaves.