PC1201 Lecture 10

Charges
Preview 2

We will learn about charging by friction, which is the phenomena behind bees attracting pollen. When bee’s wings move rapidly through the air, the bee
gains a small positive charge, allowing the bee to attract pollen
Content 3

• History
• Nature of charges
• Model of an atom
• Conservation and interaction
• Insulators
• Charging by friction
• Conductors
• Polarization
• Charging by contact
• Charging by induction
Introduction (History)
The origins of electrostatic interaction
Introduction I 5

• From ancient times, people were aware of the

curious property of amber (Greek: ἤλεκτρον, ēlektron)
• Thales of Miletus (600 BC) realized that rubbing
fur on amber causes it to attract small and light
objects
• His explanation: Evidence that inanimate objects have
soul!

• William Gilbert (1600s) hypothesized that the

“amber effect” could be explained by an effluvium
• A small stream of particles that flows from the electric
object, without diminishing its bulk or weight)
Amber as used in jewellery
• This small stress of particles acts on other objects
Introduction II 6

• Stephen Gray (1729) concluded that “electrical

affluvia” could be transferred from one body to
another
• Charles François de Cisternay du Fay, (1733)
inspired by Gray, showed that almost all objects
could be “electrified”
• Benjamin Franklin (~1750) considered electricity
as an invisible fluid present in all matter
• Michael Faraday (1838) postulated that electricity
could be a property of matter (like gravity) Benjamin Franklin and his kite experiment as printed on
instead of a fluid the $10 bank note
Nature of charges
What are charges?
How do they interact?
Nature of charge Ia: Model of atom 8

• Charges, like mass, is an inherent property of

matter
• There are two types of charges
• Positive charges: Protons
• Negative charges: Electrons
• The current model of an atom consists of:
• A nucleus which consists of positively charged protons
• Surrounded by a cloud of negatively charged electrons Atom consists of a positively charged nucleus and a
loose cloud of negatively charged electrons
Nature of charge Ib: Model of atom II 9

• An object is
• Neutral if it has equal amounts of positive and negative
charges
• Positively charged if it has an excess of protons
• Negatively charged if it has an excess of electrons
• Because protons are tightly bound to the nucleus,
they cannot be added/removed from an atom
• Electrons are loosely bounded and can easily be
removed Positively charged ions are atoms which lost an electron
and negatively charged ions are atoms which gained an
electron
Nature of charge II: Conservation and interaction 10

• The fundamental unit of charge is the magnitude

of charge that one electron/proton has
𝑒𝑒 = 1.60 × 10−19
The SI unit for charges is Coulomb (C)
• Charges are conserved:
• One cannot create or destroy charges
• One can only transfer charges from one body to another
• Like charges repel, unlike charges attract Like charges repel
Unlike charges attract
Insulators
Insulators I 12

• Insulators are materials that do not allow electrons

to flow freely
• Insulators are charged by friction (rubbing two
objects together)
• Friction causes molecular bonds on the surface of the
material to break
• This allows a neutral molecule to break two parts: one
being positive ion and the other, a negative ion
• If the positive ion remains on one object and the
negative ion on the other, insulators are charged
Charging insulators by friction
Insulators II 13

• Examples:
• A plastic rod rubbed with wool will be negatively charged
• A glass rod rubbed with silk will be positively charged

Plastic rod acquiring

negative charges
Conductors
Conductors Ia: Polarization I 15

• Conductors are materials that allow electrons to flow freely

• Conductors can be polarized
• A charged object is brought near to a conductor (no touching!)
• Freely moving electrons in conductor will be attracted/repelled by the charged object
• Electrons will congregate accordingly to one side of the conductor

Polarization causes
there to be a net
force between the
neutral conductor
and the charged
rod
Conductors Ib: Polarization II 16

• This polarization causes there to be a net force between the neutral conductor and the
charged object
• There are two ways to charge a conductor:
• By contact
• By induction

Polarization causes
there to be a net
force between the
neutral conductor
and the charged
rod
Conductors IIa: Charging by contact I 17

• Charging by contact
• Touch a conductor with an initially charged object
• Charges will flow to/from the conductor, leaving it with a net charge
• The charges will spread through the conductor rapidly
• Note that the initially charged object will be discharged (have less charge) after this process

Charging by contact:
charges from the
charged rod flows to
the metal sphere upon
contact
Conductors IIb: Charging by contact I 18

• Grounding (discharging by contact)

• The earth can be considered as a large conductor
• Grounding a charged conductor is basically allowing it
to make contact with earth
• If we ground a negatively charged object, electrons flow
from the object to ground (earth)
• If we ground a positively charged object, electrons flow
from ground (earth) to the object

Discharging: Excess charges from the cup is neutralized

by electrons flowing from the earth (a large conductor)
Conductors III: Charging by induction 19

• Charging by induction
• Bring a charge object very near a conductor (no
touching!)
• The conductor will be polarized
• Ground the conductor
• Remove grounding wire and charged object Charging by
induction
• Conductor will now have a net charge
20
21
22
Application I: Photocopier/laser printer 23

• A photocopy machine works in the following way:

• The drum is uniformly charged with a positive charge
• The image to be copied is projected onto the drum
(using lenses)
• The material (selenium) of the drum causes the rest of
the drum to discharge, and only the image is still
positively charged
• The toner (fine dark powder) is given a negative charge The workings of a photocopier/laser printer.
and is brushed onto the drum. The toner will be
attracted to the positively charged image
• Heat is used to fix the toner onto the paper
Preview of next lecture 24

• Electric forces and electric fields

• Knight Ch 20.3-20.7 (pg 675-689)
• Torque won’t be covered

An elephant nose fish uses charges to see!