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Static Electricity
Static Electricity
Introduction:
Hey everyone! How are you all? Today we are going to start static electricity. First of all, have you girls ever
wondered why your hair get attracted to the sweaters you wear in winters? It’s because when your hair get rubbed
with the sweater, they acquire static electric charges and become charged. This shows that friction from rubbing can
cause an object to be charged or electrified.
Electric charge is measured in Coulombs ( C), no matter if its negative or positive. The amount of charge on an
electron is 1.6 x 10-19 C, indeed a very small charge.
Discharging:
Before coming towards induction, let us first take a look at how objects can be neutralized after they are charged i.e.
discharging. Any ideas?
Okay, insulators and conductors are discharged differently.
● Heating the insulators discharges them, e.g. if a charged glass rod is heated, it will get neutralized. Now to
understand how this happens, the air surrounding the glass rod gets ionized due to intense heat. The ions in
the surrounding air then neutralize the excess charges in the glass rod. Humid conditions can also
neutralize a charged insulator as the water vapour in the air helps to remove the excess charges on the
insulator.
● A charged conductor can be neutralized by earthing it. As shown below, the electrons from the earth flow
through the body to the positively charged metal sphere to neutralize it. Note that the positive charge
indicates the absence of electrons, so it can’t flow. Only negative charge i.e. electrons will flow.
Induction:
Okay, now coming towards induction, it is the process of charging a conductor without any contact with the charging
body.
Okay this was for two objects, how to induct charge in a single metal object? Let’s study that!
1. Okay firstly, the bring a negatively charged glass rod near the neutral metal sphere hanged with an
insulating wire. The free electrons in the metal will be repelled to the far end as shown in the diagram above.
2. Now, without removing the glass rod, earth the negative side of the metal conductor by touching it with hand
or earthing it otherwise. The electrons will flow to the earth. This will neutralize the negative charges.
3. Remove earthing and remove the glass rod. The positive charges will be redistributed on the surface of the
conductor. The conductor is now positively charged.
Any confusion? Lets move on!
Electric Field:
We all know that unlike charges attract while like charges repel.
If two charges are placed in vacuum, it will experience a force, either attraction or repulsion, right? This force is called
electric force. Note that the charges are not in contact with each other. So what is electric field then? It is basically a
region where an electric charge experiences an electric force.
The direction of the field is the direction of the force on a small positive charge and the strength of the field is
indicated by how close the filed lines are to each other.
Note that the direction of filed lines is always away from the positive charge and towards the negative charge.