Question

How can you tell that a greater magnitude of charge has been placed on an electroscope?

Answer 1

When the greater magnitude of charge (whether it is +ve or -ve) is placed on an Electroscope, the leaves of the electroscope repels. For example, consider the net electrical charge on an electroscope is +ve, the leaves will repel each other due to the same charge.When we bring the negatively charged object near the top of the electroscope, it will attract some positive charge from the conductor and repel the negative charge from the top terminal of a conductor to the leaves of the electroscope, this causes the leaves to move closer together( ie leaves will have more or less equally opposite charges, leads to attraction of leaves). But when we place more negatively charged object on the electroscope, leaves will attract each other and then it will begin to repel each other(this is due to repulsion of more negative charge from top terminal to leaves ).This is same as if the object is positively charged.