Static Electricity | What is static electricity?
What is static electricity?
As you placed the charged balloon near the charged paper, you might have seen or heard a small crackle of static electricity. When an object with a strong negative charge is placed near one with a strong positive charge, the attraction of these opposites is so great that the air between them becomes electrically charged. It forms a path over which the electrons can move. As the electrons jump from the negative object to the positive one, they create static electricity. After the jump, the electrons are balanced again, so both objects lose their electrical charge.
American scientist and political leader Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) was one of the first to experiment with static electricity. You may remember his famous and dangerous kite experiments with lightning, which is a form of static electricity.
Scientists still do not know exactly how lightning occurs, but they do know...
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