Bakerian lecture - On the forms of equipotential curves and surfaces and lines of electric force

Abstract

This paper contains an account of certain experimental verification of the laws of electrical distribution in space and in a plane conducts sheet. The potential at any point of an unlimited plane sheet due to a char of electricity at any other point of the plane at distance r from it is pr portional to the logarithm of the distance, and the potential due to two or more charges at different points of the plane is the sum of the potentials due to the several charges; so that when there are two points in plane conducting sheet connected with the poles of a battery, as the are equal currents flowing at those two points, one into and the oth out of the sheet, the potential at any point of the sheet is proportion to the difference of the logarithms of its distances from the two poin or electrodes where the current enters and leaves the sheet.