Static Electricity Day 2025 is on Thursday, January 9, 2025: The build up of static electricity on a dry day?

Thursday, January 9, 2025 is Static Electricity Day 2025. Shocking News: Its National Static Electricity Day Static Electricity Day

Static Electricity Day is a superb excuse to experience with static electricity! Rub a balloon to develop static, after which have some fun by looking into making hair (or possibly another person's) get up on finish.

Static electricity is usually caused when certain materials are rubbed against each other—like wool on plastic or the soles of your shoes on the carpet. It is also caused when materials are pressed against each other and pulled apart.

The process causes electrons to be pulled from the surface of one material and relocated on the surface of the other material. It is called the triboelectric effect or triboelectric charging.

The material that loses electrons ends up with an excess of positive (+) charges. The material that gains electrons ends up an excess of negative (−) charges on its surface.

Dry air preferred

Static electricity is formed much better when the air is dry or the humidity is low. When the air is humid, water molecules can collect on the surface of various materials. This can prevent the buildup of electrical charges. The reason has to do with the shape of the water molecule and its own electrical forces.

Rainstorms

But when there is extreme turbulence among water drops, such as in a thunderstorm cloud, static electric charges can build up on the water drops.

Benjamin Franklin showed that static electricity in created in a thunderstorm cloud by flying a kite in a storm. He detected the static electricity by seeing the hairs on the kite string stand on end and by creating a a static electric spark with a metal key. This was dangerous experiment, and Franklin was lucky not to be killed.

What is static electricity ?

Static electricity is the accumulation of opposite electric charges on dissimilar surfaces. It is called "static" because it does not flow in conductive materials the way an electric current flows.

But static accumulates, and the surfaces do not necessarily have to be made of substances that conduct electricity. That's why something like a furry sweater can get you a shock on a winter day.

You get shocked getting out of your car because you come in contact with some object that has accumulated a static charge opposite to the charge that has accumulated on your body and your clothes. You feel the shock because the charge equalized through your skin. POW! ZAP!

The cure for this is to let the charge equalize first through something that will protect your skin. For example, if you get a shock from a doorknob or car door handle, take your keys in your hand and touch the doorknob with the keys first. If there was an accumulated charge there, you will see a spark. Because the spark didn't touch your skin, you will feel little if any shock.

Now the charge is equalized, and you can touch it with your nose, your tongue, or any other body part without getting shocked. Have fun!

Carpet causes static electricity?

Static Electricity (or just static charge) works off something called the Triboelectric effect. When two different materials rub together, they exchange electrons due to adhesion. Some materials are, in a sense, electron "greedy." If you rub a greedy material on a less greedy material, the greedy one will tend to steal electrons from the other.

When electrons build up in an object, we call it Charge. When you drag your feet on the carpet on a dry day, the carpet steals electrons from you, and so you become positively charged, and your house becomes negatively charged. Electrons don't want to be bunched up together, so when you touch a doorknob or whatever, and get shocked, it's because the electrons want to get back to you and restore an even charge.

Because of really complicated stuff, charge is always carried on the outside of an object, and won't normally go to the inside. Skin is also a really bad conductor for electricity, but still, if the charge is big enough, it can pass through the skin and do damage. Don't worry, though. To get hurt by static electricity, you have to have an ENORMOUS charge, like in the hundreds of kilovolts range, and dragging your feet on the carpet will probably make a couple of hundred volts or so.