Electrostatic

Without a doubt the most attention-getting week in any physical science course is when the students get an up-close experience with the Van de Graaff generator. There’s a lot more to be learned, however, than just how to make your hair stand up. Where charges reside, how they behave and how they affect their surroundings, including you, are all part of a broad understanding of electrostatics.

Here we present quite a number of accessories for use with the Van de Graaff Generator. Each one is designed to show some particular characteristic of high voltage electrostatic charge. As you read the description of each item you can easily imagine the attention and excitement of the students when they see powerful demonstrations of phenomena with which they are not familiar.