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Re: Student question/trioboelectric series



Joe, your reply sent me off to my collection of introductory physics
texts. I thought maybe I had misremembered the name of the phenomenon
I was thinking of. It isn't a widely discussed subject, I will admit,
but I did find a reference to it in Hecht's calculus-based text (p.
647, in the1996 edition) and I had remembered it correctly, as least
as correctly as Gene Hecht had. While making up a definitive list may
be difficult, this is a lab exercise we have our students (11th and
12th graders) do every year, with a few objects (Saran wrap, rabbit
fur, plastic, Scotch tape, Styrofoam, wool, and a few others). Their
task is to arrange the objects they are given in an order such that
the object at the top of the list will transfer electrons to any
object below it on the list, the one on the bottom will pick up
electrons from any one on the list above it, and those in between
will give up electrons to those below and accept electrons from those
above (I think that's the normal order). According to Hecht, this is
called a triboelectric series, and that's what we have called it for
at least 15 years.

Have we been doing it wrong, all these years?

Hugh

This is one hell of a problem, which I explained to him off the
net. Currently there is no good answer to his question, and the
experiments are very difficult to do, and cost lots. If you want to
send someone off to work on a project, think about the project and what
a student might be able to do before you launch them.

Good idea in principle, but not for this topic.

cheers

joe

--

Hugh Haskell
<mailto://hhaskell@mindspring.com>

Let's face it. People use a Mac because they want to, Windows because they
have to..
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