Hair, Balloons, and Static Electricity: All You Need To Know

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For a long time and scientists are confused about the universe and always ask, how could we understand the universe? How could we know the way that the universe works with?

Physics came trying to give them a better understanding of the universe. Physics keeps changing as we progress and make new discoveries. New theories don't just bring new answers. They also create new questions that might not have even made sense when viewed from within the previous theory of physics.

This makes physics exciting and interesting. Physics is one of the fields of information that underlies the physical universe and applies continuously to people’s ordinary lives. Everything around us uses physics in one way or another.

Our automobiles, planes, and trains burn fuel, our computers require electrical sources and Wi-Fi connections, and our telecommunication devices operate on cellular signals. It can be as fundamental as the conversion of electrical energy to heat to make the morning coffee or as complex as plotting a space shuttle flight from Earth into orbit. Physics play an important role in our life.

Hair and balloon famous experiment

On a dry day, bring a rubber balloon and rub it back and forth over your hair. You may be able to hear the crackle of static electricity as you do so. After about 10 seconds of rubbing, pull the balloon away from your hair. Your hair should be pulled up along with the balloon.

This is an interesting phenomenon that we saw in our childhood. We were getting amazed when we see this and think if this is a magic or not!

It’s all about static electricity, but how is the static electricity made, and why does it make your hair stand on end?

Why does this happen?!

Static electricity is an imbalance of electric charges within or on the surface of a material. The charge remains until it is able to move away by means of an electric current or electrical discharge. All physical objects are made up of atoms. Inside an atom are protons, electrons and neutrons.

Opposite charges attract each other (negative to positive). Like charges repel each other (positive to positive or negative to negative). The protons are positively charged, the electrons are negatively charged, and the neutrons are neutral.

Typically atoms are neutral, which means they have the same number of electrons and protons. However, atoms become charged when there is an imbalance in the amounts of these particles, which can happen fairly easily for certain materials.

It is possible for neutral atoms or molecules, which normally contain equal numbers of positive and negative charges (protons and electrons), to gain extra electrons and turn into negative ions, or to lose some of the electrons and turn into positive ions.

Some materials have a stronger attraction to electrons than other materials. When two materials with a dissimilar attraction to electrons come in contact, electrons may be transferred from one material to another, thereby making one material positively charged and the other negatively charged.

This electron transfer is usually facilitated by rubbing.

Initially, atoms in both of the balloon and the human hair have an equal number of protons and electrons. When a rubber balloon is rubbed against human hair, electrons are transferred from the hair to the balloon.

The electrons in the balloon increase giving it a net negative charge, and the electrons in the hair decrease leaving it with a net positive charge.

When we pull the balloon away after rubbing, the balloon will have a net negative charge, and the hair will have a net positive charge. If we made the balloon close enough to the human hair, the negative charges on the balloon, and the positive charges on the hair will attract each other.

So, that's why the balloon and the human hair attract each other.

Conclusion

This was some of the huge examples and applications in physics in our life. Don't just think about physics in your class, and you cry because you don't understand its concepts. Physics is more than that. It is very important for us as it helped us with a better understanding of our universe and how it works.

Physics is second only to mathematics in the purity of its principles. Physics describes how the natural world works through applied mathematical formulas.

Believe it or not, the principles, graphs, laws, and equations used in physics were not created to make explaining the universe more difficult; they are there to make it easier to explain the universe and precisely illustrate the patterns found within it.

Physics deals with the fundamental forces of the universe and how they interact with matter looking at everything from galaxies and planets to atoms and quarks and everything in between.

All other natural sciences stem from physics. Chemistry is essentially applied physics and biology is essentially applied chemistry. A Physics theory is responsible for the breakthroughs in electronics that precipitate advances in modern computers and electronic media.

- Written by Amr Abdalkhalek Meshref (EMN Community Member From Egypt)

- Edited by Mridul Goyal (EMN Community Member From New Delhi, India)