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
Electrostatic charge and electricity are two different things, in fact you wouldn’t be able to do that if the baloon was conductive.
When you rub a balloon with the appropriate material like your hair as you mentioned, you cause some of the electrons of one of the objects to stick to the other causes the baloon to have an electrical charge. because of the excess or lack of some electrons, if the baloon was conductive, the electrons wouldn’t be stuck and if there was an excess it would find its way out before you stop rubbing it.
Electricity is a continuous flow of electron through caused by a voltage, electrostatic charges are just an excess of charges.
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