Electrostatics: Exploring, Controlling and Using Static Electricity/Includes the Dirod Manual [Paperback]

A. D. Moore (Author), Joseph M. Crowley (Foreword)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Electrostatics is the reader's opportunity to learn from A. D. Moore (1895-1989), the unquestioned authority on static electricity, as he recounts his lifetime of experimentation and invention. It is written in an exceptionally clear and direct prose that the reader might think he/she is actually hearing the author talk about the history of the exploration of electrostatics.

Moore's explanations of atomic structure, electrical fields, etc. are so simple; they are easily understood at the high school level. This book is full of information that it will also serve college students well. Examples and historical anecdotes reinforce factual information. Teachers can profit from studying Moore's style of presentation.

The first section of the book focuses on the theory of static electricity and the evolution of the theoretical principles. Proper attention is given to earlier contributors such as Franklin, Faraday, Kelvin, Maxwell, and Van de Graaf.

The second section of the book explains how to construct one's own electrostatic generator. The explanations are clear and precise with easy-to-follow diagrams and a list of materials. Any teacher who wants an electrostatic generator can easily construct one as a class project.

The third section offers 25 demonstrations that can be used in classrooms or for science fair projects. They represent a broad spectrum of sophistication from the repulsion of two Styrofoam cups to the "pizza pan perpetual motion" experiment. First written in 1968, it has a freshness that makes it instructive and highly interesting for today. It's a good addition to the school or classroom library. -- Noojin Waalker, The Science Teacher Magazine, December 98

Product Details

• Paperback: 244 pages
• Publisher: Laplacian Press; 2 edition (December 19, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1885540043
• ISBN-13: 978-1885540041
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #227,287 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Classic, available again, June 15, 2003

By 

Dennis L. Bieber "wulfraed" (Sunnyvale, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Electrostatics: Exploring, Controlling and Using Static Electricity/Includes the Dirod Manual (Paperback)

I'd first encountered this (well, the first half; the "manual" being a collection of notes added for the current printing) around 1970-74. At that time I'd have been middle-school/HS freshman.

The book was quite readable in back then, and should still prove such. One caveat: I have noticed some typesetting problems setting out equations -- fortunately this book isn't meant to be mathematically rigorous. Rather, it shows a number of simple experiments, variations in designs (besides the Dirods, there are the Shake-sphere and Pendulum machines, and Kelvin's water drop generator), and the basic theory (without heavy math) behind these type of generators.

The mid-60's photos and illustrations do pale in comparison to what could be produced today, using simple Word, Photoshop, and Illustrator (or even a 3-D rendering engine), but I find they are not a distraction.

I actually attempted to build the Dirod Jr, based just on memories of the book, during the mid-70's. Unfortunately, using hand-held jig saws, and drills (without even those cheap guide-rails that came out late in the decade) meant I had lots of misaligned rods. My biggest problem was in finding a suitable pickup-brush material.

My problems should not scare anyone else away from trying to build these machines.

Finally, let me mention that if one is considering between this book, and R.A. Ford's "Homemade Lightning"... BUY THIS ONE.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nature's most nearly perfect book., April 2, 2001

By 

Bryan J Lowder (SLC, UT USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Electrostatics: Exploring, Controlling and Using Static Electricity/Includes the Dirod Manual (Paperback)

With all the respect due a neighbor, I don't think Nicolle read the same book I did. I heartily disagree.

This book was one of my *all-time favorites*, one I checked out of the library until it was dog-eared and I was broke from fines and photocopy charges. I'm very glad to see it in print!

This book was fascinating and enlightening. It made electrostatics crystal clear to me. Perhaps its only fault is that it rambles like a novel without a textbook-like structure. But this is also part of its charm, and may be why it's so digestible.

_Electrostatics_ is as much a how-to book as anything. Designs for electrostatic generators and demos abound, including a section in the back with detailed instructions on building two or three of Moore's "dirod" static generators. ( I've never built one, but I'm dying to get started.. and I imagine they make ultimate science fair projects for the kiddies.)

I love this book. I'm getting a copy as soon as I pay Uncle Sam his due.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars good book for doing electrostatic experiments, February 16, 2003

By 

Juergen Kahrs (Bremen, Germany) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Electrostatics: Exploring, Controlling and Using Static Electricity/Includes the Dirod Manual (Paperback)

This is a book about electrostatics, not electricity in general. So its focus is how to generate high voltage, how to store it and what to do with it. The emphasis is definitely on the practical side, there is very few theory because the author addresses young people and not professionals.

If you are aiming at a university degree, this book is not for you. Although the author of the book was a university professor, you will find no complicated theories, no frightening ciphers, but some formulas which can be computed with the simplest pocket calculators. The author wrote this book when his long university career had ended. He wanted to entertain young people and motivate them to enjoy experiments and possibly become engineers or scientists.

Moore was a famous experimenter and lecturer who travelled around the world with his apparatus, doing demonstrations. In the 1960s and 1970s, he wrote down his practical experiences in some kind of laboratory book which developed into the book I am talking about. Now you understand why the experiments and pictures in the book look a bit dated.

I like this book for its hands-on approach, but the book also has some aspects I dont like so much. Firstly, it is not a stringent textbook. It is a compilation of instructions on building machines and all kinds of obstacles you run into when trying to get them running. There are many drawings and some photographs in the book; the drawings often being very simple and the b/w images being not very clear. It is annoying that most of the formulas in the book were cut at the left and right sides so that many of them are unreadable or simply wrong because of a missing character at the edge.

American readers might appreciate that the author gives the dimensions of the mechanical parts in inches and feet. Even more annoying to me is the way he mixes up electrical units and dimensions in his formulas. For example, when calculating the energy of a charged capacitor, he gives us this formula: "oules= 1/2 C V", meaning the energy measured in Joules (the J was cut off) is half the product of capacity and voltage. Capacity is a dimension and volt is a unit. But this example also has its bright side. He tells us that (as a rule of thumb) 1/4 Joules is an energy that produces a very unpleasant (but harmless) electrical shock while 10 Joules is a fatal amount of energy.

The book has an index and a bibliography. The index is good but the bibliography is mostly useless nowadays because the referenced books were all published before 1970 and are out of print today. I still like the book, but others may prefer the book by R.A. Ford, Homemade Lightning, ISBN 0-07-137323-3.