eli5 how static electricity works and how it’s different from the stuff in our wall sockets/ lightning?
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Lightning is just static electricity on a massive scale and with large voltages. It’s the same general principle. Charges build up on a surface due to various reasons. In lightning storms this happens because of the chaotic motion in the air and water/ice particles in the storm. Air acts as an insulator of electricity and is what is known as a dielectric. Dielectrics act to cancel any electric fields that cross them by aligning their atoms parallel and opposing to the applied electric field making it difficult for current to cross. However, once the electric field increases beyond a certain threshold, something called electrical breakdown occurs and the dielectric becomes a conductor of electricity for a second and an arc will jump across it as current is pumped through it. That is what lightning basically is. The voltage difference between the ground and the clouds eventually becomes high enough to cause a massive current of electricity to conduct through the air and makes lightning. Same principle for the small sparks you get when touching door knobs or whatever else.
Wall sockets are different in that they derive their electrical energy from a power grid system that distributes electrical energy to homes using an alternating current system that modulates the voltage supply to the socket. It is set to 120 V in the US. Wall circuits are parts of an electrical circuit and don’t really operate on the same principles that electrostatic discharges do.
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