eli5 – If a balloon is rubber, and rubber is an insulator then how come rubbing a balloon on your head creates electricity?
In: Earth Science
An insulator is a material that electrons have a hard time moving through. The “electricity” on the balloon is called static electricity, or static charge. What’s going on when you rub the balloon is the balloon is either gaining or losing electrons. Whether it gains or loses electrons depends on what material you’re rubbing in against.
Let’s say it gains electrons. Because electrons have a hard time moving around through rubber, those electrons stay in the area where you were rubbing. That build up of electrons is the static charge.
If you were to dump a bunch of electrons onto a conductor like metal, the electrons would repel each other and easily move away from each other through the metal dispersing the charge.
Latest Answers