You will be creating a charge configuration by using an external power supply to fix a zero potential and 5 volt potential at two particular locations on your grid. in terms of an analogy with elevation maps, this is equivalent to creating sea level at one spot, and a mountain at another spot. the external power supply continuously adds or subtracts the electrons needed to maintain zero potential where the black lead is connected, and 5 volts potential wherever the red lead is connected. as your spatial grid, you have conducting paper that allows charges to move freely through it from high potential to low potential. in reality, it is the electrons that are moving in the paper. because electrons are negatively charged, they will feel a force from low potential to high potential, "up the mountain," in the direction opposite to the electric field. but for this experiment and future ones in the lab, we will use the conceptual convention that the charges which move in response to the electric force are positive. positive charges will feel a force from high potential to low potential, "down the mountain," in the direction of the electric field.
1) in the case of the dipole charge configuration, you will make one of the charges 0 volts and the other charge 5 volts.
halfway between the two charges, what do you predict the voltage to be?
draw the dipole charge setup, with the voltages on the charges labeled, and also label the point halfway between the two charges and draw that point’s equipotential line.
2) draw schematics for your three pieces of conducting paper that will respectively have the single point charge, the dipole, and the parallel plates. show where you will put the conducting aluminum tape strips and/or circular stickers, the thumbtacks, and where you will fix the potentials at 0v and 5v, and an example of where you could measure the potential on the paper.