Harnessing Static Electricity

Project Number: 78

Description: You need a comb or a plastic ruler and some paper for this project. Rip up the paper into small pieces. Run the comb through your hair several times and then hold it near the paper pieces to pick them up. You can also use the plastic ruler, and then rub it on your clothes (wool works best). Rubbing the comb through your hair pulls extremely tiny charged particles from your hair onto the comb. These give the comb a static electric charge, which attracts the paper pieces.

Other Methods: If you have two balloons, rub them to a sweater and then hang the rubbed sides next to each other. They will repel. You could also use the balloons to pick up the tiny pieces of paper. Take a piece of newspaper or other thin types of paper and rub it vigorously with a sweater or a pencil. It will stick to a wall. Cut some paper into two long strips, rub them, and then hold them next to each other. See if they attract or repel each other. Get a roll of plastic tape. Make some strips about a foot long. Hold their ends so they hang downwards, and then slowly bring them close together. See if you can make them touch each other.

Snappy: Electricity is immensely more powerful than gravity (gravity is what causes things to fall to the ground when you drop them). However, electrical attraction is so completely balanced out that you don't notice it, while gravity effects are always apparent because they are not balanced out. Gravity is actually the attraction between objects due to their weight (or technically, their mass). This effect is extremely small and it can be ignored unless one of those objects is as big as a planet (like the earth). Gravity attraction never goes away and is seen every time you drop something. Electrical charges, though usually balanced out perfectly, can move around and can change quickly. For example, you have seen how clothes can cling together in a dryer due to static electricity. There is also a gravity attraction between the sweaters, but it is always extremely small. Electricity is produced in dams, by harnessing the power of gravity to move water to spin a generator. If instead we could harness the static electricity contained in the water, we would have all the electricity we need. Snappy says to notice how your hair "stands up" or to be attracted to the comb when the air is dry. Wetting your hair dissipates the static charge.