| Grounding Hand: After you depress the Grounding Hand button, a hand tracks the cursor as you move it across the simulation window. If you click on charged objects with the hand, you remove some or all of their charge. You can also click on the leads of a neon bulb to discharge the conductor to which the bulb is attached. In the example below (from the Electrostatic Lab Bench simulator), the simulator is in Run mode and the Model View is on. The two conductors (the electroscope and the pendulum ball) are negatively charged, and the insulator is positively charged. In Figure 1, the grounding hand is posed and ready to strike the insulator. The hand must touch an insulator several times (normally about five) to completely neutralize it. In this example, the hand only touches it once. Thus, in Figure 2, the red region is only a bit thinner.
Fig. 1 | Fig. 2
Fig. 3 | Fig. 4
In Figure 2, the hand is posed over the electroscope. If no other charged objects were nearby, the hand would completely neutralize the conductor. However, the hand only removes most of the charge (Figure 3). In Figure 3, the hand is ready to touch the pendulum ball. In the case of this object, the hand does neutralize the ball (Figure 4).