This year I decided to leave the gold leaf electroscopes in the cupboard
and introduce electrostatics with those nice experiments with sticky tape
that were described here a short while back. (btw we always called it
"sellotape" in S. Africa. Here in Italy they call it "scotch", which means
something different to me...)
First I found that the brand of transparent tape we had in the lab just
didn't seem to acquire any charge no matter what I did...
Then I found a different roll. It seems to be made of more substantial
material. Sure enough - it gets charged when peeled away from another
strip. Gets attracted to my arm. Next I try to get two like-charged strips,
peeling both off base strips stuck to the table. But what's this?? They
*attract* each other!
Oh well, I'll dust off the electroscopes after all.
Mark.
Mark Sylvester
United World College of the Adriatic
34013 Duino TS
Italy.
msylvest@spin.it
tel: +39 040 3739 255