Electroscope

The electroscope is an early scientific instrument used to detect the presence of electric charge on a body. It detects this by the movement of a test charge due to the Coulomb electrostatic force on it. The amount of charge on an object is proportional to its voltage.

The accumulation of enough charge to detect with an electroscope requires hundreds or thousands of volts, so electroscopes are used with high voltage sources such as static electricity and electrostatic machines.
An electroscope can only give a rough indication of the quantity of charge; an instrument that measures electric charge quantitatively is called an electrometer.

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Source: Wikipedia · Image: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain

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