The original story “ Physicists solved a decades-old mystery about static electricity ” is published in The Brighter Side of ...

Static electricity may seem simple. Students often learn that rubbing a balloon against their hair will cause negatively ...

When microscopic particles of sand, ash, or dust collide in the air, they often exchange a tiny electrical charge. This tiny ...

There’s a shocking lack of understanding of the physics underlying this commonplace phenomenon, but researchers are on the ...

If you’ve ever felt a shock after rubbing your hair with a balloon or shuffling across a carpet, you’ll know that static ...

A growing body of research is shifting how scientists explain static electricity, pointing to surface contamination and ...

Static electricity often just seems like an everyday annoyance when a wool sweater crackles as you pull it off, or when a doorknob delivers an unexpected zap. Regardless, the phenomenon is much more ...