We are just beginning our unit on electricity, today was day one. Stemming from New Latin, electricity means “amber-like,” because some really old guys put it together that rubbing amber on fur would result in the attraction of very light objects such as feathers. They had way too much time on their hands. To kick off our new little unit, Mr. Wirth aka “Dubbs,” began by performing the following demos: rubber and fur, glass and silk, rotating rod, magic water, and the electroscope. The electroscope is used to detect the magnitude of electric charge on a body. A gold leaf electroscope is pictured below:

Notice that the two gold leaves separate from each other, indicating the presence of an electric charge. If the electroscope is brought near a charged object, without touching it, the leaves diverge, because charges in the disk with identical polarity to the charged object are repelled to the leaves. A pretty complicated way to tell that something is electrically charged, but it gets the job done. Next up is static electricity. It is not really static because electrons have obviously moved around, but in any case the electrons stick to objects that are poor conductors of electricity. This phenomenon of static electricity requires a sustained separation of positive and negative charges; when you touch the surface that is charged, you get a pretty sick shock. Ever shocked someone on their neck with your finger? That’s pretty much static electricity right there. This is quite possibly the most messed up picture I have ever seen, but it shows what’s up with static electricity. Don’t let this be you:

The fundamental idea behind electricity is matter, and the fact that it is composed of atoms. In turn, atoms are composed of protons, electrons, and neutrons. Protons have a positive charge, electrons have a negative charge, and as you may be able to guess neutrons are neutral. Certain objects can and do become electrically positive or negative when they have a lack or an excess of electrons. Why electrons and not protons? Protons are constant; they are trapped in the nucleus of the atom and cannot get out. When an object has an equal number of protons and electrons, it is electrically neutral. We have here students a picture of an atom:

By loosing or gaining electrons, metals become positively or negatively charged. For the rest of the class we watched a short video. Peace-PC