Chapter 6 Electric Charge and Electric Field

A child swoops down a plastic playground slide, his hair standing on end.
Figure 1. Static electricity from this plastic slide causes the child’s hair to stand on end. The sliding motion stripped electrons away from the child’s body, leaving an excess of positive charges, which repel each other along each strand of hair. (credit: Ken Bosma/Wikimedia Commons)

Static electricity has been observed for thousands of years.

 

cat covered with styrofoam peanuts
Styrofoam peanuts clinging to a cat’s fur due to static electricity. The triboelectric effect causes an electrostatic charge to build up on the fur due to the cat’s motions. The electric field of the charge causes polarization of the molecules of the styrofoam due to electrostatic induction, resulting in a slight attraction of the light plastic pieces to the charged fur. This effect is also the cause of static cling in clothes. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons: CC BY2.0 Sean McGrath from Saint John, NB, Canada

The image of American politician and scientist Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) flying a kite in a thunderstorm is familiar to every schoolchild. (See Figure 2.) In this experiment, Franklin demonstrated a connection between lightning and static electricity. Sparks were drawn from a key hung on a kite string during an electrical storm. These sparks were like those produced by static electricity, such as the spark that jumps from your finger to a metal doorknob after you walk across a wool carpet. What Franklin demonstrated in his dangerous experiment was a connection between phenomena on two different scales: one the grand power of an electrical storm, the other an effect of more human proportions. Connections like this one reveal the underlying unity of the laws of nature, an aspect we humans find particularly appealing.

Benjamin Franklin is shown flying a kite and lightning is observed. A metal key is attached to the string.
Figure 2. When Benjamin Franklin demonstrated that lightning was related to static electricity, he made a connection that is now part of the evidence that all directly experienced forces except the gravitational force are manifestations of the electromagnetic force.

Much has been written about Franklin. His experiments were only part of the life of a man who was a scientist, inventor, revolutionary, statesman, and writer. Franklin’s experiments were not performed in isolation, nor were they the only ones to reveal connections.

For example, the Italian scientist Luigi Galvani (1737–1798) performed a series of experiments in which static electricity was used to stimulate contractions of leg muscles of dead frogs, an effect already known in humans subjected to static discharges. But Galvani also found that if he joined two metal wires (say copper and zinc) end to end and touched the other ends to muscles, he produced the same effect in frogs as static discharge. Alessandro Volta (1745–1827), partly inspired by Galvani’s work, experimented with various combinations of metals and developed the battery.

During the same era, other scientists made progress in discovering fundamental connections. The periodic table was developed as the systematic properties of the elements were discovered. This influenced the development and refinement of the concept of atoms as the basis of matter. Such submicroscopic descriptions of matter also help explain a great deal more.

Atomic and molecular interactions, such as the forces of friction, cohesion, and adhesion, are now known to be manifestations of the electromagnetic force. Static electricity is just one aspect of the electromagnetic force, which also includes moving electricity and magnetism.

All the macroscopic forces that we experience directly, such as the sensations of touch and the tension in a rope, are due to the electromagnetic force, one of the four fundamental forces in nature. The gravitational force, another fundamental force, is actually sensed through the electromagnetic interaction of molecules, such as between those in our feet and those on the top of a bathroom scale. (The other two fundamental forces, the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force, cannot be sensed on the human scale.)

This chapter begins the study of electromagnetic phenomena at a fundamental level. The next several chapters will cover static electricity, moving electricity, and magnetism—collectively known as electromagnetism. In this chapter, we begin with the study of electric phenomena due to charges that are at least temporarily stationary, called electrostatics, or static electricity.

We must talk about atoms when we talk about electricity.  The next few sections were originally Chapter 30 in the Open Stax College Physics book.

View of tubular arrangement of atoms, as observed with a scanning electron microscope.
Figure 3. Individual carbon atoms are visible in this image of a carbon nanotube made by a scanning tunneling electron microscope. (credit: Taner Yildirim, National Institute of Standards and Technology, via Wikimedia Commons)

From childhood on, we learn that atoms are a substructure of all things around us, from the air we breathe to the autumn leaves that blanket a forest trail. Invisible to the eye, the existence and properties of atoms are used to explain many phenomena—a theme found throughout this text. In this chapter, we discuss the discovery of atoms and their own substructures; we then apply quantum mechanics to the description of atoms, and their properties and interactions. Along the way, we will find, much like the scientists who made the original discoveries, that new concepts emerge with applications far beyond the boundaries of atomic physics.Glossary

static electricity
a buildup of electric charge on the surface of an object
electromagnetic force
one of the four fundamental forces of nature; the electromagnetic force consists of static electricity, moving electricity and magnetism
This book is based on Open Stax College Physics.  You can download the original book for free at <  https://openstax.org/details/college-physics  >.

License

Icon for the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Douglas College Physics 1207 Copyright © August 22, 2016 by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

Share This Book