Static Electricity Update.

Leonardo completely redesigned his experiment. He used a plastic jar with a plastic lid but didn’t change the wire.

This time the tin foil moved. Leonardo still used his polo fleece to create the static electricity which means our previous thoughts about needing woolen fabrics was not the problem.

What's happening?

Rubbing the balloons against your hair creates static electricity. This involves negatively charged particles (electrons) jumping to positively charged objects. When you rub the balloon against your hair it become negatively charged. The balloon has taken some of the electrons from the hair and left them positively charged.

They say opposites attract and that is certainly the case in this experiment. Leo’s positively charged hair is attracted to the negatively charged balloon and started to rise up to meet it. This is similar to the aluminium foil which was drawn to the negatively charged balloon as the area near it became positively charged, once again opposites attract.