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Your correct that electrical induction will not generate static
electricity, but it allows the efficient collection of the charges generated.
They get their name form the change in technology. This is just like twenty
.............
This is getting a long way from Rutherford's original experiment and
rather cleaver experiment.
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This "clever experiment" was the procedure used in a note by McGinley in
AJP, Vol 41, p. 921-922 (July 1973), Atmospheric Radioactivity, in which he
"plated out" daughter products of radon onto a 4-m length wire kept at about
-20 kV with a Van de Graaff generator. He references this procedure to:
Rutherford and Allen, Phil Mag. Ser. 6, Vol 4, 704 (1902).
Another reference in this note is: Soilleux, Health Phys. Vol 18, 245 (1970).
If someone can send me a copy of either or both of these latter papers,
I would greatly appreciate this!
I have to admit that the McGinley AJP paper partly influenced my interest
in what turned out to be my own papers related to this topic:
Radioactiveball, TPT Vol 30, p.16-17 (Jan 1992)
and The Hot Balloon (Not Air), TPT Vol 33, p 344-345 (Sept 1995)