Introduction: Faraday's ice pail experiment is a simple electrostatics experiment performed in 1843 by

British scientist Michael Faraday that demonstrates the effect of electrostatic induction on a conducting
container. For a container, Faraday used a metal pail made to hold ice, which gave the experiment its
name.The experiment shows that an electric charge enclosed inside a conducting shell induces an equal
charge on the shell, and that in an electrically conducting body, the charge resides entirely on the
surface.It also demonstrates the principles behind electromagnetic shielding such as employed in the
Faraday cage.The ice pail experiment was the first precise quantitative experiment on electrostatic
charge.It is still used today in lecture demonstrations and physics laboratory courses to teach the
principles of electrostatics.It is an excellent product for sampling charges distributions. The PASCO
version illustrated in the lab consists of two wire mesh cylinders, one inside the other, mounted on a
molded plastic bottom. The outer cylinder is called the shield. It provides complete visibility to the inside
of the pail and, when grounded, helps eliminate stray charges and AC fields. The inner cylinder is the
actual pail. The pail is mounted on isolated rods; the pail is 10cm in diameter and 15cm high. When a
charged object is placed inside the pail, but without touching it, a charge of the same magnitude is
induced on the outside of the pail. An electrometer connected between the pail and the shield will
detect a potential difference. The greater the charge, the greater the potential difference. So even
though the electrometer will give readings of voltage, it is possible to use those values as relative charge
measurements.

Discussion: The reason to this situation is , we can charge the inner shield only when the charged object
is inside. There is no sharing of charge so the charged position of the pail can not be permanent. But if
we let the charged object touch the shield all the charges will be transferred to the ice pail. In this
situation we will have a permanent potential difference. We proved the conservation of charges with
putting the objects into the pail and recording the values of potential differences one by one and saw
that their magnitudes are same except their signs. Also we proved that by letting the charged object
(white) touch the pail and we saw that if we touch the blue object to the pail it neutralized the pail and
electrometer showed zero volts.

It can also be said that if we let the charged object touch the field, all the charges will be transferred to
the ice pail and this situation will have a permanent potential difference.

The magnitude of the charges are the same except for the signs. This revealed that the charges were
conserved when putting the objects into the pail one by one and recording there potential differences.
Furthermore, it was proved that by letting the charged object (white) touch the pail then putting the
blue object, the pail became neutralized and the electrometer thus showed zero volts.

The polarity of the objects was opposite resulting in no change in the electrometer. The charge was
conserved in the demonstration.