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Hi all-_______________________________________________
This looks to me like a polarization experiment that only requires
one sign of charge. Am I missing something?
Regards,
Jack
On Thu, 7 Jul 2005, Robert Cohen wrote:
On Wednesday, July 06, 2005 8:54 PM, John Denker wrote:
What I'm looking for is a hands-on, compelling demo
that can be done in high school classes (no electron
microscopes, no neutron scattering, etc.) and imparts
a good "feel" for how big atoms are. It's not an
easy question; there were a lot of very smart physicists
who lived pre-1900, and they didn't figure it out.
How good of a "feel" do you want?
I know this doesn't give what you want (an estimate for N)
but how about rubbing a balloon with hair (or whatever) and
having it attract pieces of paper? No perceptible mass
was transferred to/from the balloon yet whatever was
transferred exerted a force larger than the gravitational
force (on the paper).
This doesn't give you a number but to some students this has
more meaning than a number (e.g., Avogadro's or atom radius).
P.S. This also shows that there must be two types of charge
(repulsive and attractive).
____________________________________________________
Robert Cohen; 570-422-3428; www.esu.edu/~bbq
East Stroudsburg University; E. Stroudsburg, PA 18301
--
"Trust me. I have a lot of experience at this."
General Custer's unremembered message to his men,
just before leading them into the Little Big Horn Valley