41) The problem asks us what will happen if we take away the positively charged rod after grounding the electroscope. We already discussed in the previous question how the electroscope would react with the positive rod close by. You can see how we found that by looking at Question 40.
Now when we ground the electroscope, the diagram would look like this.
Essentially, the grounding provides an endless supply of electrons. Since the rod is positively charged, many electrons come from the grounding and try to get to the knob of the electroscope. Notice that at this point, there are more electrons than protons, but the leaves are still positively charged.
Finally, we need to see what happens when the grounding and the positively charged rod is taken away.
When we take away the grounding, the excess electrons are still left there. Since the electrons are constantly repelling each other, they will distribute themselves throughout the electroscope. Thus, there will now be more electrons than protons in the leaves of the electroscope, telling us that the leaves diverge because of they’re charged negatively.
Answer: A
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