2. Experiment design Describe an experiment you could design to see which of the

Question

2. Experiment design Describe an experiment you could design to see which of the following are conductors or insulators: rubber, plastic, gold, cloth, & aluminum. Include a clear description of your experimental set-up including diagrams if needed. Describe what would happen in your experiment if the object you were testing were a conductor, or what would happen if the object you were testing were an insulator. Discuss any assumptions you might be making and how they could affect the outcome of your experiment.

Explanation / Answer

We can consider a simple experiment wherein we make a small can made of the substance which may be a conductor or insulator. Then we introduce a small metal ball i.e.a conductor into the can. Then we find that if the can material is a conductor then the metal sphere will be found to have lost all its charge on removal from the inside of the can while if the can is made of an insulator it will not lose its charge.

The principle which applies here is Gauss's law due to which all the free charge on a conductor settles on its surface so that there is no charge distributed inside the conductor while the opposite is true of an insulator.

The can must be provided with a lid which is of the same material as the can and can be closed after the metal ball is inserted.

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