Specific Inductive Capacity

Abstract

PERHAPS a better mode of performing the experiment quoted by Mr. Rudge (p. 10) is to have two insulated parallel metal plates, one connected with an electroscope, the other with a slightly-charged Leyden-jar. On now interposing a thick slab of paraffin or ebonite (recently passed through a flame) between the plates, a very decided increase of divergence will be perceived. Unless, indeed, the electroscope should happen to have overflowed to earth during the charging of the jar, in which case it will be oppositely charged and a decreased divergence may be caused. To interpose the slab is, in fact, virtually to diminish the distance between the plates, and its effect is therefore the same as that of pushing the plates closer together.