Static Electricity

Coming Home



Me (yeah I have to wear glasses) and keeper Jamie Rosenberg, finally coming home!!

 On December 31, 2011 the 'Iolani girls varsity soccer team and I would return home from our Arizona tournament. The successful win at the tournament felt satisfying. Unfortunately we had to leave on Christmas day. Luckily, we would return home for the first day of the new year. I had not taken physics yet, so I was not able to explain why my hair would stand up (I do not have much common sense either). I have a lot of baby hair so having all my hairs stand up was annoying. From physics I learned the three ways to create charged objects: friction, contact, and induction. Specifically pertaining to the physics of why my hair stood up, my hair became a charged object through friction. Sitting on the plane the back of my head would rub against the head seat. By friction my hair would gain electrons while the seat would lose electrons. Electrically charged, the strands of my hair would repel each other because each of them carries a negative charge. There are many instances like in a long car drive where your head rubs against the seat head. Being on the plane makes the static electricity even more obvious, however. When it is dry, like on the plane, there is less moisture in the air. Water is polar where one end is slightly positive and other end slightly negative. The polar quality of water prevents static electricity as charged objects become neutral. The dry air in the plane has less moisture so there is more static electricity. The cold air, from being so high up in the sky also adds to the severity of static electricity.