explain hauksbee francis electrostatic generator experiment in detail
Answers
This image depicts a Hauksbee electrostatic generator, circa 1705. Its creator used this invention to delight audiences who attended Royal Society meetings in London during the early 18th century.
The Hauksbee electrostatic generator was an apparatus consisting of a glass globe which could be rotated rapidly by a hand-cranked wheel, making it possible to generate an electric charge by rubbing the glass globe with a cotton cloth or by hand.
While spinning the large wheel, Francis Hauksbee placed his other hand over the rotating globe at the top of the device (from which he had previously pumped-out all the air). This caused the globe to produce a light which stunned people who were used to reading by candlelight or oil lamps.
Note, however, that if air remained in the glass globe—instead of being evacuated—Hauksbee's device would not produce light.
Devices such as this, which generated static electricity, were the main producers of electricity in the early 18th-century. Although such machines could fuel experiments and demonstrations, involving electrical charges, they were incapable of storing electrical charges (for later study and experimentation).
They were also incapable of producing a continuous flow of electrical current.
Hauksbee’s new design was soon transformed by other experimentalists who made various innovations (like introducing a metal tube which allowed the transmission of static electricity to a desired location).
The idea behind Hauksbee's generator is that a triboelectric (electrostatic) effect arises from sliding hands on a spinning glass. The voltage generated ionizes the gases in the globe, creating a blue plasma glow inside.