Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Electrostatic machines are typically used in science classrooms to safely demonstrate electrical forces and high voltage phenomena. The elevated potential differences achieved have been also used for a variety of practical applications, such as operating X-ray tubes, particle accelerators, spectroscopy, medical applications, sterilization of food, and nuclear physics experiments.
Franklin's electrostatic machine on display at the Franklin Institute. Franklin's electrostatic machine is a high-voltage static electricity-generating device used by Benjamin Franklin in the mid-18th century for research into electrical phenomena.
The Leyden jar was used to conduct many early experiments in electricity, and its discovery was of fundamental importance in the study of electrostatics. It was the first means of accumulating and preserving electric charge in large quantities that could be discharged at the experimenter's will, thus overcoming a significant limit to early ...
Ancient Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus described static electricity by rubbing fur on substances such as amber. 1600: English scientist William Gilbert coined the word electricus after careful experiments. He also explained the magnetism of Earth. 1660: German scientist Otto von Guericke invented a device that creates static electricity ...
Lord Kelvin used this foundation of accumulated knowledge to, in 1859, create an apparatus involving the interaction of a stream of water with the Earth's static electric field to cause charge separation and subsequent measurement of charge to make atmospheric electricity measurements.
Electrostatic generator, machines that create static electricity. Electrostatic induction, separation of charges due to electric fields. Permittivity and relative permittivity, the electric polarizability of materials. Quantization of charge, the charge units carried by electrons or protons.
Static electricity is an imbalance of electric charges within or on the surface of a material. The charge remains until it can move away by an electric current or electrical discharge . The word "static" is used to differentiate it from current electricity , where an electric charge flows through an electrical conductor .
An engineering drawing of a Wimshurst machine, from Hawkins Electrical Guide Wimshurst machine in operation Quadruple sector-less Wimshurst machine. The Wimshurst machine or Wimshurst influence machine is an electrostatic generator, a machine for generating high voltages developed between 1880 and 1883 by British inventor James Wimshurst (1832–1903).