1) An easy way to discharge a dielectric surface (instead of
squeezing it between dirty hands while a grounded pipe is touched)
is to keep it near a flame (where air is full of + and - ions) for about
one second. Not above the flame, where soot can be deposited, but
on the side, about 3 cm away. Very effective. The burning candle is
in the adjacent room. A match or a cigarette lighter also do a good
job. Any other simple method?
2) After finding a little island of reproducible (each dielectric sheet
is coated with one conducting layer) we decided to stay away from
the stormy ocean of crazy results (naked surfaces), for a while.
Instead of lexan covered with carbon we used “plexi-mirrors” last
night. These are pieces of Plexiglas coated with aluminum. And
we did find something significant.
Not a significant physics effect, only a significant detail about
experimental asymmetry. We normally remove dielectric sheets
from the dissectible capacitor one after another. We take the
upper sheet to the Faraday cup while the lower sheet is waiting
on top of the grounded aluminum block. Then the lower sheet is
brought to the cup (to measure its charge). This is wrong. Think
about Volta’s electrophorus.
Next time we will remove both sheets together and separate
them far away from grounded objects. This is easier to say
than to do. But at least one asymmetry effect will be reduced
significantly, we hope. It is nice to work on the island of
reproducibility, we change one parameter after another, we
study the effect and we think. This is normal science, not a
madhouse, as it was so far.
3) Eventually, we must return to the uncoated sheets, first only
one, then two and maybe more. And the grounded chassis of the
power supply will be disconnected from the negative terminal
inside the power supply; it seems to be a matter of removing a
single wire. Hopefully things will become normal in terms of
reproducibility. Will we then see the real Faraday’s “charge
penetration” effect? Maybe yes and maybe not.
Ludwik Kowalski