Concept

To maintain our goal we need a setup that allows us to charge the glass spheres and also to measure the charge they carry. We build a setup in analogy to an hourglass, so there are two reservoirs filled with glass spheres connected through a copper ring. The hourglass is rotatable and the glass spheres charge as they collide with other particles or walls.

 

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As the hourglass is turned by 180°, single spheres fall through the copper ring due to the gravitation and induce charges in the ring. Using a high sensitive charge detector we are able to measure this electrical induction. To keep the pressure and temperature at normal conditions the hourglass is placed inside a pressure vessel which isolates the inner volume from the outside atmosphere.