Question

• Describe an experiment for electrostatic force and record your experiment with your phone.Describe your experiment and answer the following questions about each object:
• Is it a conductor or an insulator?
• Is it charged or neutral?
• If it is charged, describe how you charged it. Is it positively charged or negatively charged?
• If it is neutral, describe how it still attracted or repulsed by a charged object.
• You can answer these questions by either narrating your video, or by submitting a separate word file. There is no need to get fancy production wise unless you want to submit it to TikTok

You can choose either a repulsive interaction, or an attractive one.

Answer 1

We can do several experiments to demonstrate the electrostatic force. Now we can look for the simplest one which can be done using a baloon and a water tap only...!!!

Let's go through the procedures.

1. Take a baloon and fill air in it till maximum size is reached. Tie its ends so that no air will escape.
2. Rub that baloon with a silk cloth or you can rub it with your hair also. So that the baloon gets electrically charged by the method of charging by conduction( Direct contact)
3. Now open a water tap. Let the water flow down with a minimum speed so that we can observe the effects very clearly.
4. Bring the charged baloon closer to the flowing water and now you can see some magic.
5. The flowing water will get ATTRACTED towards balloon. the water will not flow in a straight line rather a carved path will be observed.
6. This is because, our baloon was originally charged and hence when it is brought close to the water, the water gets charged just opposite charge of the baloon. hence, the flowing water gets attracted towards the baloon because of the electrostatic force. (Charging by induction= opposite charge is induced)
7. This is the simplest experiment to record using your mobile phone and you can do it with simple apparatuses. Would like to attach a image to demonstrate how the change occurs.

Now we can go through the questions

1. Is it a conductor or an insulator? we used silk to charge baloon, and baloon to charge the water. All are insulators (Rather, Dielectrics)
2. Is it charged or neutral? All were neutral initially. but by frction/rubbing, the baloon gets charged and by induction flowing water also gets charged.
3. If it is charged, describe how you charged it. Is it positively charged or negatively charged? We charged the baloon using rubbing it with silk and by convention baloon gets positively charged and silk gets negatively charged. This happens by the transfer of electrons from baloon to silk. and when baloon is brought closer to water, the water gets same charge of the baloon(ie. Positive).
4. If it is neutral, describe how it still attracted or repulsed by a charged object.? It was neutral initially. Then it became charged and hence it gets attracted towards the baloon.