Timeline for How sensitive was the frog galvanoscope?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
6 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 6, 2023 at 13:21 | vote | accept | jpa | ||
| Oct 1, 2023 at 17:34 | answer | added | David Bailey | timeline score: 7 | |
| Oct 1, 2023 at 12:11 | comment | added | jpa | @njuffa That's a useful datapoint. Various sites note the capacitance of gold-leaf electroscope as between 1 pF and 20 pF, which would relate the 0.01 pC to a voltage of 0.5 - 10 mV. That's surprisingly low, as some other sites say minimum detectable voltage for gold-leaf electroscopes would be a few hundred volts. In any case, this seems to give a range of 10 nV to 10 mV for the answer to the question - still pretty wide uncertainty :) | |
| Oct 1, 2023 at 10:10 | comment | added | njuffa | My understanding is that a gold-leaf electrometer (also called electroscope) measures charge, and this site states: "A typical school electroscope will show a deflection for a charge as small as 0.01 pC". | |
| Oct 1, 2023 at 10:07 | comment | added | njuffa | Similar claim: Benjamin Silliman, First Principles of Chemistry, for the Use of Colleges and Schools, 50th ed. Philadelphia: Beck & Bliss 1861, p. 141: "The irritable muscles of the frog's leg form an electroscope 56,000 times more delicate than the most delicate gold-leaf electrometer. Professor Matteucci's frog-galvanoscope (fig. 197) is therefore the most sensitive test of electricity that can be employed." | |
| Sep 30, 2023 at 8:59 | history | asked | jpa | CC BY-SA 4.0 |