Static electricity

Question 1

What is static electricity? + caused by rubbing

Answer 1

It is the result of imbalance between negative and positive charges in an object. Static electricity is caused by two objects rubbing and one supplying electrons to the other (making one object positively charged, and the other negatively charged since there is an imbalance of electron amount within both objects

Question 2

What is a conductor?

Answer 2

Conductors are materials that permit electrons to flow freely from particle to particle. A conductor has loosely bound outer electrons, which easily flow between molecules. These are silver, copper, gold, metal, salt and more.

Question 3

What is an insulator?

Answer 3

A material where the electrons are trapped and cannot move or flow. An insulator has tightly bound outer electrons, which won’t readily jump to other atoms. Insulators are plastic, rubber, glass and wool.

Question 4

What charge do electrons, protons and neutrons have?

Answer 4

Electrons are negatively charged, protons are positively charged and neutrons are neutrally charged.

Question 5

How can you determine if an object is neutrally, positively or negatively charged?

Answer 5

Based off of the amount of electrons and protons it has. If it has an equal amount of electrons and protons, it is neutrally charged. If an object has more protons than electrons, it is positive. If it has more electrons, it is negative.

Question 6

Describe to me atomic structure -parts of atom, neutrality

Answer 6

All materials are made out of atoms, which contain electrical charges. The protons and neutrons are in the nucleus of the atom, and electrons on the outside of the atom. Usually, the atom has an equal amount of protons and neutrons. Therefore, it is electrically neutral.

Question 7

What is charge?

Answer 7

The term charge is a measure of imbalance of electrons. A ‘charged’ material is NOT an electrically ‘neutral’ material.

Question 8

What is static charge?

Answer 8

Static charge is when there is an imbalance of charge, and that charge is trapped, or static stationary. This occurs in insulators, like plastic

Question 9

Which charges attract?

Answer 9

Positive and negative, negative and neutral, positive and neutral objects attract

Question 10

Which charges repel?

Answer 10

Positive and positive, negative and negative, neutral and neutral objects repel (because there is no attraction.. they just push each other away)

Question 11

What is charging by induction?

Answer 11

Charging by induction happens when charges in an uncharged metal object are rearranged without direct contact with a charged object. Suppose you hold a metal object near a positively charged object. The electrons from the metal are attracted and move towards the positively charged object. This movement induces an area of of negative charge on the surface of the metal.

Question 12

How does friction between two materials cause electrons to jump from one and stick to another?

Answer 12

Friction scrapes off electrons from one material and deposits them on the other material

Question 13

What is the difference between a spark and lightning?

Answer 13

Lightning is just a big spark

Question 14

Explain why after rubbing a balloon on a woolen jumper it will stick to the wall

Answer 14

Because some of the wall’s negative charges are repelled by the balloon’s negative charges, leaving a little space of positive charge, allowing the balloon to be attracted and stick to the wall.

Question 15

What is charging by conduction?

Answer 15

Charging by conduction involves the contact of a charged object to a neutral object. Hence when an uncharged conductor is brought in contact with a charged conductor, charge is shared between the two conductors and hence the uncharged conductor gets charged.

Question 16

What is an electroscope?

Answer 16

The electroscope observes and recognizes static electricity, using skinny plastic/metal leaves, that separate when they’re charged. The electrical charges go to the metal, then the foil leaves, that afterwards repel one another. Since the leaves have the same charge, be that positive or negative, they repel each other.

Question 17

What’s a simple explanation of induction?

Answer 17

A charged object charges a neutral object without direct contact (no touching)

Question 18

What’s a simple explanation of conduction?

Answer 18

A charged object can charge a neutral object through direct contact

Question 19

What is grounding?

Answer 19

Grounding makes A path for electrons to move freely between a charged object and the Earth.
This can result in a spark if the charged object has a large charge and an object is brought close by that give the electrons a path to earth.

Question 20

What is Coulomb’s law?

Answer 20

Coulomb’s Law states that the electric force between two objects is proportional to the distance between the objects.
This means: As the distance between two charged objects increases, the electrical force between them decreases.
As they get closer, the electrical force increases.

Question 21

Tell me shortly of the key ideas: (induction, grounding, electric force)

Answer 21

You can charge things by induction. This involves electrons getting as far away from a charged object as they can.
Electrons can get even farther away from charged items by moving through objects into the ground. This is called grounding.
The closer a charged object gets to another object, the stronger the electric force is between them.

Question 22

What’s the order of weak to strong hold on electrons

Answer 22

acetate
glass
wool
fur, hair
calcium, magnesium, lead
silk
aluminum, zinc
cotton
paraffin wax
ebonite
polyethelene (plastic)
carbon, copper, nickel
rubber
sulphur
platinum, gold

Question 23

How does triboelectric series work?

Answer 23

The triboelectric series is a list that ranks materials according to their tendency to gain or lose electrons. … During such an interaction one of the two objects will always gain electrons (becoming negatively charged) and the other object will lose electrons (becoming positively charged).

Question 24

Making triboelectric series predictions: Glass (weak) & cotton cloth (strong)

Answer 24

The glass will become positively charged because glass has a weaker hold on electrons than cotton, so the electrons will go to the cotton cloth, leaving the glass positively charged and the cotton cloth negatively charged.

Question 25

Making triboelectric series predictions: copper (strong) and silk (weak)

Answer 25

The copper has a strong hold on electrons, and the silk has a weaker hold on electrons. Therefore, the silk will become positively charged. The copper will attract the electrons from the silk, thereby the silk will be positively charged (it has more protons now) and the cotton will be negatively charged, as it has gained the electrons from the silk.

Question 26

Making triboelectric series predictions:

ebonite (strong) & wool (weak)

Answer 26

Wool has a very weak hold on electrons, and ebonite has a relatively high hold on electrons. Therefore, the wool will become positively charged. The electrons on the wool will go to the ebonite, leaving ebonite negatively charged, because it’s gained electrons from the wool.

Question 27

Making triboelectric series predictions: 
human hair (weak) & plastic comb (strong)

Answer 27

Hair has a really weak hold on electrons, whilst the comb made of plastic has a strong hold on electrons. Therefore, the hair will become positively charged. It will give its electrons to the hair comb, and the hair comb will become negatively charged. It now has more electrons than protons, and therefore hair starts flying if you brush it repeatedly. Opposites attract ;D

Question 28

How well do objects charge one another in humid and dry air?

Answer 28

It’s easier for them to exchange electrons in dry air. The more humid the air, the less effective the exchange will be. So if an experiment isn’t working as efficiently as it should be, it may be because the air is too humid.

Question 29

How does the Van De Graaf work?

Answer 29

A Van de Graaff generator pulls electrons from the Earth, moves them along a belt and stores them on the large sphere. These electrons repel each other and try to get as far away from each other as possible, spreading out on the surface of the sphere.
When the Van de Graaff generator starts charging, it transfers the charge to the person who is touching it. Since the person’s hair follicles are getting charged to the same potential, they try to repel each other. This is why the hair actually stands up.

Question 30

What is the electric field?

Answer 30

The closer a charged object gets to another object, the stronger the electric force is between them.