Question

1) With static materials, What happens when you bring each charged plastic strip near the paper pieces? Why does this happen?

2)Draw a free body diagram of the forces acting on the piece of paper.

Answer 1

1) With static materials, When a charged plastic strip is brought near the paper pieces, they start dancing and stick to the charged plastic.

With static materials, when they are rubbed against each other, they get charged due to the movement of electrons between them. Either the material becomes positively charged or it becomes negatively charged depends in which material the movement of electrons are taking place. The material in which the electrons are moving becomes a negatively charged material as the number of protons will be less than the number of electrons.

You must be aware that Unlike charges attract each other and Like charges repell each other.

The same thing happens when a charged plastic strip is brought near the paper pieces, Within the paper pieces, the electrons get either repelled or attracted according to whether the plastic strip has a negative or positive charge. This makes the paper pieces have an unlike charge in the direction of charged plastic strip, and makes them rise towards it.

This charge that is created when two objects are rubbed against each other is called static electricity.

2)