Chapter 17
Static electricity
Charging and discharging
KEY WORDS
electrostatic charge: a property of an object that causes it to attract or repel other objects with charge
electron: a negatively charged particle, smaller than an atom
proton: a positively charged particle found in the atomic nucleus
positive charge: one of the two types of electric charge, the other is negative charge
negative charge: one of the two types of electric charge, the other is positive charge
neutral: having no overall positive or negative electric charg
Exercise 17.1
IN THIS EXERCISE YOU WILL:
recall key facts about the attractive and repulsive forces between electric charges
check your understanding of electrostatic charging
describe how an object gains an electrostatic charge by thinking about electrons and protons.
TIP
NEVER talk about positive charge moving with static electricity. It is ALWAYS (negative) electrons.
Focus
1 a What name is given to a material that allows electric charge to flow through it?
b Give an example of a material that does allow charge to flow through it.
2 A learner rubs a plastic rod with a wool cloth. The rod gains a negative electrostatic charge. Before the experiment, the rod had no
electrostatic charge.
State the one word that means "having no electrostatic charge.
Practice
3 a State what type of particles have been transferred to the rod in Question 2. Explain how you know.
b The cloth is left with a positive charge. State which type of particle it has more of:
protons or electrons.
4 A learner rubs a plastic rod with a wool cloth. The rod and cloth both become electrostatically charged.
a State the force that causes the two materials to become charged.
b The cloth has a positive electrostatic charge. State what type of charge the rod has.
c The cloth and rod are brought close to one another. State whether they will they attract or repel each other.
d Explain why this happens.
5 Figure 17.1 shows one way in which the learner could observe the forces exerted by the electrostatically charged cloth and rod on each
other.
Figure 17.1: A diagram showing how the electrostatic forces between two charged objects might be observed.
Write a brief description of this experiment. Explain how it is done and describe what you would expect to observe.
Challenge
6 Explain why conductors allow electrostatic charge to flow through them, but other materials do not allow charge to flow through them.
> Explaining static electricity
Exercise 17.2
IN THIS EXERCISE YOU WILL:
practise explaining everyday static electricity phenomena.
Focus
1 It is easy to generate static electricity by rubbing two materials together. The materials must both be electrical insulators, and they
must not be the same material.
Find some different plastic items such as pens, rulers and combs. Find some pieces of cloth made from cotton, polyester, wool and SO
on.
Rub one plastic item on one of the cloths. Test whether your item has become electrostatically charged by seeing if it will pick up
scraps of paper. Use scraps of thin paper less than 5 mm in size.
Try different combinations of plastic items and cloths. Keep a record of your results in a table.
Describe and explain your findings briefly. In your answer:
state whether one combination of materials is better than another at generating static electricity
describe how you made this a fair test.
Electric fields and electric charge
KEY WORD
electric field: a region where charged objects experience force; the direction of the field at a point in the field is the direction of force
on positive charge
Exercise 17.3
IN THIS EXERCISE YOU WILL:
practise drawing electric field patterns.
TIP
With field patterns, how closely packed the field lines are shows us how strong the field is. Field lines ALWAYS go from positive to
negative.
Focus
1 State the direction of an electric field at a point.
Practice
2 Draw the field patterns described:
a around an isolated positive charge.
b around a negatively charged sphere.
c between two parallel plates that have a potential difference between them.
Challenge
3 Draw the field pattern between the charges shown in Figure 17.2.
(+2C) -2C)
Figure 17.2: A diagram showing two point charges close to each other.
