Question

The electroscope was a tool used in the early days of classical physics to explore the way in which charges interact, enabling measurement of small forces, and establishing Coulomb's law.

If there are two balls each the same mass hanging by threads of the same length and equally charged then they repel one another and push apart. Gravity pulls them back toward one another. Let each ball have a mass of 2 g (0.002 kg), and be hanging from a nearly weightless thread 0.15 m long. If they settle into being pushed to 3 cm part (0.03) m, answer these questions.

1. Determine the charge on each ball.
2. How many electrons are there on each ball?
3. What will happen in an identical situation if the mass of the balls is cut in half?
4. What would happen if the charge on each ball is doubled?

Please answer all 4 elements of this question here and include some brief explanation of your reasoning.

Answer 1