Kelvin Water Dropper


Kelvin Water Dropper

Lord Kelvin (Sir William Thomson) was an Irish-Scottish physicist and mathematician who in 1867 invented what he called his “water-dropping condenser.”This setup is a brilliant example of producing electrostatic charges from water which seems to be neutral. Kelvin’s electrostatic equipment generates voltage differences from falling streams of water, similar to the way charged water droplets in a thundercloud generate the static discharges we see as lightning.It is build around the concept of water droplets falling through inductors. Two streams of water fall from small holes in reservoirs at the top. Those streams fall through two metal cylinders, called inductors, not making contact with them. A stream of falling water will change from a continuous stream into individual drops at some point, if it falls far enough. A reservoir of water or other conducting liquid (top, green) is connected to two hoses that release two falling streams of drops, which land in two buckets or containers (bottom, red and blue). Each stream passes (without touching) through a metal ring or open cylinder which is electrically connected to the opposite receiving container; the left ring (red) is connected to the right bucket, while the right ring (blue) is connected to the left bucket. The containers must be electrically insulated from each other and from electrical ground. Similarly, the rings must be electrically isolated from each other and their environment. It is necessary for the streams to break into separate droplets before reaching the containers. Typically, the containers are made of metal and the rings are connected to them by wires.







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