A spherical conductor of radius 12 cm has a charge of $1.6\times 10^{-7}$C distributed uniformly on its surface. What is the electric field

(a) inside the sphere

(b) just outside the sphere

(c) at a point 18 cm from the centre of the sphere?

(b) A man fixes outside his house one evening a two metre high insulating slab carrying on its top a large aluium sheet of area $1m^2$. Will he get an electric shock if he touches the metal sheet next morning?

(c) The discharging current in the atmosphere due to the small conductivity of air is known to be 1800 A on an average over the globe. Why then does the atmosphere not discharge itself completely in due course and become electrically neutral? In other words, what keeps the atmosphere charged?

(d) What are the forms of energy into which the electrical energy of the atmosphere is dissipated during a lightning?
(Hint: The earth has an electric field of about 100 V$m^{-1}$ at its surface in the downward direction, corresponding to a surface charge density =$-10^{-9}$ C$m^{-2}$. Due to the slight conductivity of the atmosphere up to about 50 km (beyond which it is good conductor), about + 1800 C is pumped every second into the earth as a whole. The earth, however, does not get discharged since thunderstorms and lightning occurring continually allover the globe pump an equal amount of negative charge on the earth.)