An Elementary Treatise on Electricity
ON THE CHARGES OF ELECTRIFIED BODIES
Excerpts
ON THE CHARGES OF ELECTRIFIED BODIES
For if the process of electrification is conducted within the closed vessel, however intense the electrification of the parts of the system may be, the electrification of the whole, as indicated by the electroscope connected with the vessel, remains zero.
ON THE CHARGES OF ELECTRIFIED BODIES
The total electrification or charge of a body or system of bodies remains always the same, except in so far as it receives electrification from, or gives electrification to other bodies.
ON THE CHARGES OF ELECTRIFIED BODIES
If an electrified body or system of bodies be placed within a closed conducting surface (which may consist of the floor, walls, and ceiling of the room in which the experiment is made), the interior electrification of this surface is equal and opposite to the electrification of the body or system of bodies.
ON THE CHARGES OF ELECTRIFIED BODIES
The electrification of the gold leaves when tested is found to be of the *same* kind as that of the ball.
ON THE CHARGES OF ELECTRIFIED BODIES
This statement, which is approximately true for any deep vessel, is rigorously true for a closed vessel.
ON THE CHARGES OF ELECTRIFIED BODIES
Their electrification however will be found to be of the *opposite* kind from that of the ball.
ON THE CHARGES OF ELECTRIFIED BODIES
Since whatever be the position of the electrified bodies within the vessel its external electrification is the same, it must depend on the total electrification of the bodies within it, and not on the distribution of that electrification.
ON THE CHARGES OF ELECTRIFIED BODIES
When an electrified body is placed within a closed vessel and then put into electrical connection with the vessel, the body is completely discharged.
ON THE CHARGES OF ELECTRIFIED BODIES
We have thus a method of comparing the electric charges of different bodies without discharging them, of producing charges equal to that of a given electrified body, and either of the same or of opposite signs, and of adding any number of such charges together.
ON THE CHARGES OF ELECTRIFIED BODIES
In all electrical experiments the electrification of bodies is found to change, but it is always found that this change arises from defective insulation, and that as the means of insulation are improved, the loss of electrification becomes less. We may therefore assert that the electrification of a body cut off from electrical communication with all other bodies by a perfectly insulating medium would remain absolutely constant.
ON THE CHARGES OF ELECTRIFIED BODIES
By means of Thomson’s Quadrant Electrometer it is easy to measure the electrification of a body when it is a million times less than when charged to an amount convenient for experiment. Hence the experimental evidence for the above statements shews that they cannot be erroneous to the extent of one-millionth of the principal electrifications concerned.
Equations
Problems
No exercises in this chapter.