Monday, September 22, 2014

Balloon and electric interactions, tape and electric interactions, electric force law, experiments with van de graff generator




Balloon and Electric Interactions



We were asked what we thought would happen when to a balloon when placed on a wall after a pelt of fur were rubbed on the balloon.  Our prediction of this situation was that the balloon would slide down slowly because although there were some electric attraction between the wall and the wall, that the gravity acting on the balloon would make it slide down the wall.  The result was that the balloon actually stuck to the wall and didn’t fall at all.  What happened was that when the fur and the balloon came in contact, the balloon stole the negative charge from the fur so when the balloon touched the wall it stuck.  





The balloon sticks to the wall because the negative charge on the balloon forces the negative charges on the wall to move away creating an induced positive charge which attracts the negative charge from the balloon.  The same thing will happen between the balloon and the wall if the balloon is rubbed with a piece of silk or even your hair!









Tape and Electric Interactions

First we stuck two different pieces of tape onto the table, pealed the off, and brought the two non-sticky sides of the tape together.  When brought together, the two pieces of tape repelled each other.  This is because the tape stole positive charges from the table so when they were brought together the same sides with the same charge repelled each other.  It could also be seen that they closer the two pieces of tape approached one another, the more they repelled one another.  Next, two pieces of tape were stuck to the table and another two pieces of tape were stuck on top of the pieces on the table.  First we pulled both strips off the table and then the two pieces were pulled apart.  When the two pieces that were on the table were brought together they repelled a lot, when the two top strips that were connected to the bottom strips they repelled slightly, and when the top pieces were brought to the bottom pieces they were attracted to each other.  The tapes that were repelled from each other had the same charge and the tapes that attracted each other had opposite charges.  These results prove the hypothesis that was given at the start of the experiment, there are two types of electrical charges known as positive and negative.






Electric Force Law

We began this experiment with a 4A question and were asked to find the angle that a ball hanging on a string has with the vertical after a charged ball repelled the hanging ball.  The angle was found to be sin^-1(x2/L).  Now we are told that a child sits on a swing with mass m and that this child is being pulled horizontally so that the string remains length l and at the same theta found in the charged ball problem.  The force the child is being pulled out at was found to be F = tan (theta) *m*g and after substituting theta, we found the force on the child to be F = tan ( sin^-1(x2/L))*m*g.  






A video was given to us to use as data on logger pro that was the charged ball hanging on the string and the charged ball on a stick that repelled the ball on the string and made the string approach theta.  The video was went through frame by frame and data points were taken on the video for each ball that were later shown on logger pro.  After all the points were on logger pro, two new calculated columns were created.  The first column was separation distance between the hanging ball and the ball on the stick which was calculated as (x2-x1).  The next column calculated was the electrical force from the ball on the stick on the hanging ball which we calculated earlier and is the same force as the small child   F = tan ( sin^-1(x2/L))*m*g.  After we had our two calculated columns, we made a plot of electrical force vs separation distance. 




 From our graph, we were able to show that the electric force is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between the charges because not only did our power fit equation of Ar^B give us a B value of -2.088, but when we fit our graph to the equation A/x^2 it fit almost perfect.  In fact our B value from the power fit equation only showed a 4.4% difference from the true value of 2. Next, we assumed that the charge on both of the balls was the same.  With taking two values from our graph, the force and the separated distance, we calculated the charge of the balls which we found to be 3.23x10^-7 .  



We then stated that if the charge of the hanging ball were to be half of the charge of the ball on the stick.  We calculated the charge of the ball on the stick to be 4.57x10^-7 so if the charge of the hanging ball were to be half of that then the charge on the hanging ball would be 2.9x10^-7.  As for the charge on the balls, this cannot be determined because although you know that the signs are the same (because the balls repel), there is not enough information to determine if they are positive or negative. Especially because when you solve for q its under a square root so the answer could be positive or negative.



Van de Graff Generator


How the Van de Graff Works


















The Van de Graff Generator has a rubber band that spins in a circle.  The band rotates down to the bottom of the generator and rubs a pad where it picks up electrons.  The band then continues to the top and rubs against the wires connected to a metal pole and the charge is transferred from the band to the wires.

Hair sticking up on end

When a wig is placed on top of the generator, the electrons are transferred from the generator to the ends of the hair.  Because the ends of the hair are now charged with the same sign of charge, they repel eachother which gives the hair the effect of it sticking up on its ends.  When you place your hand on the hair, you hand absorbs the electrons and the hair falls down.  Once you move your hand the electrons go back to the end of the hair and it sticks back up.
















Franklin Motor

A Franklin motor is set on top of a van de graff generator and the electrons that are generated in the van de graff are transferred to the Franklin motor.  The charge accumulates on corners and the large charge accumulation at those point makes the Franklin motor spin because the charges are exiting the generator at the ends of the rod.




























Ribbon

Ribbon was placed on top of the van de graff generator and when the electrons were transferred form the de graff generator to the ends of the ribbon, the ribbon stood up on its end.  The reason the ribbon stood away from the generator is because the generator is releasing electrons and the ends of the ribbons are filled with electrons, making them repel one another.



Storm Ball

The storm ball is filled with some type of noble gas. A voltage is applied to the center of the storm ball. The center is an electrical conductor used to make contact with a nonmetallic part of a circuit. By applying the voltage to it, and electric field between the center and the glass globe is made. This electric field allows electrons to move through the gas and towards the glass of the ball.  If you touch the plasma ball, all of the electrons will go through you to the ground. You see only one big spark inside the ball where you put your hand. 








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