A New Phenomenon in Statical Electricity

by Scientific American November 20th, 2023

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M. E. Duter, in a paper read before the French Academy in December, showed that when a Leyden jar is charged with either positive or negative electricity its internal volume increases, and that this effect is a new phenomenon, unexplainable by either a theory of an increase of temperature or of an electrical pressure. The experiment was performed by means of a flask-shaped Leyden jar with a long tube attached to its neck, and containing a liquid which served as the inner armature. The author's attention had been called to the fact that this phenomenon had been observed ten years ago by M. Gori. His researches, just made public, leave no doubt of the accuracy of M. Duter's view, that the glass of the jar really expands. According to the theory of elasticity, the effect of an internal pressure in a hollow sphere is in the inverse ratio of its thickness. M. Duter, therefore, had three flasks made of the same volume, but of thicknesses of 4 mm., 0.8 mm., and 0.5 mm. respectively. They were filled with water and enveloped by tin foil. Each carried a capillary thermometer tube, in which the variations of the height of liquid served to measure the changes in volume due to electrification. He found that these changes were imperceptible in the thick glass, very marked in the flask of mean thickness, and rose to 30 mm. in the thinnest. The variations in volume were very nearly in inverse ratio of the square roots of the thicknesses.

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Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879, by Various, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. A New Phenomenon in Statical Electricity.

A New Phenomenon in Statical Electricity.

His researches, just made public, leave no doubt of the accuracy of M. Duter's view, that the glass of the jar really expands. According to the theory of elasticity, the effect of an internal pressure in a hollow sphere is in the inverse ratio of its thickness. M. Duter, therefore, had three flasks made of the same volume, but of thicknesses of 4 mm., 0.8 mm., and 0.5 mm. respectively. They were filled with water and enveloped by tin foil. Each carried a capillary thermometer tube, in which the variations of the height of liquid served to measure the changes in volume due to electrification. He found that these changes were imperceptible in the thick glass, very marked in the flask of mean thickness, and rose to 30 mm. in the thinnest. The variations in volume were very nearly in inverse ratio of the square roots of the thicknesses.

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