I need a well label diagram of a Gold leaf electroscope
Answers
A gold leaf electroscope is an instrument which is used for detecting the presence of electric charge and its polarity.
The essential part of a gold leaf electroscope as shown in figure.
As the gold leaves have extremely thin conducting foils which have small mass per unit area and are flexible. Therefore, they respond very quickly to small electrostatic forces.When a charged rod is touched with the metal disc, the same charge is transferred to the gold leaf through the metal rod. The leaves repel each other and diverge as show in figure. By measuring the divergence of leaves, the amount of charge on the body can be estimated.
To test whether a body has a positive or negative charge, at first we charge the electroscope with a known charge. If the divergence of the leaves increases, the body has a similar charge. If the divergence of the leaves decreases the body has opposite charge.
