Static electricity

Today's Saturday self Challenge is: "Electricity"

This photo shows an example of static electricity. The plastic pen was rubbed against my hair to charge it, and then it was able to pick up pieces of tissue paper. The charged pen could also bend water, but I couldn't get a good photo of that.

Static electricity can be a big problem of course. It can build up in clouds. This can cause a huge spark to form between the ground and the cloud. This causes lightning – a flow of charge through the atmosphere. It is dangerous when there are flammable gases or a high concentration of oxygen. A spark could ignite the gases and cause an explosion. And of course one can get an electrostatic shock if one is electrically 'charged' and touches something that is earthed. Occasionally I get a shock when I touch a car door handle, and it has been known for a computer to freeze when I walk near it.

It is not all bad though. Factories use static electricity to reduce pollution coming from their smoke stacks. They give the smoke an electric charge. When it passes by electrodes of the opposite charge, most of the smoke particles cling to the electrodes. This keeps the pollution from going out into the atmosphere.