What causes static electricity? How powerful is it? How is it different from 'current' electricity? We're going to attempt to answer all these questions here. We hope you get a charge out of it! All matter is made up of atoms. Atoms are the tiny particles which make up matter... much too tiny to see, even in a microscope. Each atom is made up of two parts. The center part is the nucleus, and it has a strong positive charge. Around the nucleus of an atom are electrons, each of which has a negative charge. Most of the time, in ordinary matter, the many negatively charged electrons surrounding the nuclei of atoms exactly balance the positive charges of the nuclei themselves, so that the matter is, on the whole, neutral. The picture at the right represents ordinary neutral matter. It has no overall charge. The 'positiveness' of the nuclei is balanced by the 'negativeness' of the electrons. NEUTRAL Sometimes a material will have extra electrons floating around. In this case, there are a lot more negative charges than positive ones. So the piece of matter shown at the right will now have an overall negative charge. NEGATIVE As you might expect, it's also true that sometimes a lot of the electrons will go somewhere else. Now the negative electrons that are left aren't sufficient to balance the positive nuclei, so the piece of matter will have an overall positive charge. POSITIVE One thing to keep in mind here is that in an actual piece of matter, there are in fact billions and billions of atoms. So there are billions and billions of both positive and negative charges. As the number of electrons increases and decreases, the material can have an overall negative or positive charge. Also, it is worth mentioning that in ordinary matter, the nuclei are fixed in place ... it's the electrons that move. When there are extra electrons present, the material has a negative charge. When there are fewer electrons, the material has a positive charge. It all depends on the electrons! O.K., now it's time to have a look at the difference between 'current' and 'static' electricity. AC Current electricity is what comes out of the plug in your wall, which is used to power your appliances and lights. It represents the 'flow' back and forth of many billions of electrons through a circuit. This flowing wave of electrons usually has a voltage of about 120 v. You can think of the electrons as actually being pushed (or pulled) through the wire, through your stove, and back into the wall again. Similarly DC current, as from the battery in your car, is a flow of electrons in one direction through a circuit. Static electricity, on the other hand, will occur when something causes some of the electrons in neutral material to move away from where they were. No new electrons are involved, just ones that were there already. As they are pushed (or pulled) apart from the positive nuclei, two things happen:   1: The part of the material they left will become positively charged.   2: The part of the material they move to will become negatively charged. If the material comes in contact with something else, the electrons may be pushed right onto that other material. Then the original substance will be left with an overall positive charge, and the second material will have an overall negative charge. Notice that 'static' in this case does NOT mean 'no movement'. Rather, it means 'a charge imbalance', ... electrons moving away from nuclei, so that one area becomes more negatively charged, and another more positively charged. If all the electrons were to go back to where they came from, the material would become neutral again. Let's now illustrate what can happen when you have such a 'charge imbalance'. We'll use some more pictures to help make it clear ... move on to page two. Resources