Re: All Voltage differences are Electrostatic?

[Chuck Britton <britton@NCSSM.EDU>]

Drained 9 volt batteries are considerably easier to get for free than
fresh ones. The HV sparks don't draw much current, just a brief
discharge of the accumulated charge. (As electrostatic as any other
spark)

If there still a speck of metallic zinc left in the battery, some
charge separation will occur with essentially 9 volts of potential
difference.

At 3:40 PM -0800 2/9/03, Tucker Hiatt wrote:

> Why is it important that the 9-V batteries be drained?  And if one
> terminal of the series-linked batteries is connected to the knob of
> the electroscope, to what is the other terminal connected?  Thanks in
> advance, Tucker
>
> Sam Sampere wrote:
> >   > >To help make this simple connection, chain a bunch of drained 9 V
> > >   >batteries together in series and connect the terminals to a gold leaf
> > >   >electroscope.
> > >   >
> >   > Sam