Reference: EM30
Category: Electromagnetism
Purpose: Simple electrostatics demonstration.
Description: Attach the capacitor to a Whimshurst machine and watch as the ball that hangs between the plates of the capacitor bounces from one side to the other. The ball is attracted to one side due to the induced charge on the ball. On contact, it picks up some charge and is repelled from that side and attracted to the other side. This continues as long as the Whimshurst machine is constantly adding charge. Otherwise the charge on the two plates and the ball evens out and the oscillations stop.
