Hi. It’s Winter again and the static electric at my home is horrible. I already have a humidifier on and am wearing cotton clothing. I’m trying to find a solution and there’s recommendation to touch something metal first (e.g. a key) instead of being shocked by any metallic door handles — I don’t get it? wouldn’t I just be shocked by the key instead? Thanks.
In: Physics
To answer your question: the idea is that you use the key to touch the doorknob or whatever, so that the static discharge occurs between it and the knob, rather than between you and the knob (so you dont feel it)
However, I have a trick that is a lot easier and more convenient. I grew up in FL, and due to high humidity static shock is just not a regular thing there. Moved out to colorado mountains for college, and i HATED it. Here’s how I dealt with it, super easy: when you anticipate a static shock (touching a doorknob, closing a car door after getting out, etc) kind of close up your index finger (like you were making a fist, but only that one finger) so that the knuckle at the end of the first joint is sticking out. Then instead of just touching the thing with your hand, kind of rap/knock your knuckle against the doorknob, car door, whatever. The static discharge still occurs, but it gets completely lost in the sensory “noise” of knocking against the thing. Like you wont even notice it. At all. Then you can just open the door like normal and not feel any shock.
If youre walking down a hall or something, you can even jsut periodically tap a knuckle against a doorknob, or those little metal corner strips they have protecting corners of walls in commercial buildings and such. It’ll bleed off your static charge and again you wont notice the zap because it happens right as your knocking the knuckle.
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