Static electricity on a person can discharge as an electric spark — on a pump handle, for instance — that can set fire to flammable material. To prevent fires at gas stations, ...

There are three ways to prevent static shock when getting in or out of a car. Two of these involve preventing static from ...

You may think you know static electricity, but its true nature has long eluded scientists. We’ve now made a huge leap towards ...

Rubbing your hair with a balloon is a great way to demonstrate static electricity. Yavdat/Shutterstock From charge to discharge. Now, let’s take two surfaces with a difference in static charge.

This is due to built-up static electricity, which is an imbalance of electric charges between two things. That imbalance causes a discharge that feels like a physical shock.

Static electricity is the discharge of electrons from one object to another. We can rub our tennis shoes on a carpet and from friction build up negative electrons.

“The static energy from a [combine] discharge ranges from about 10 millijoules (mJ) to 150 mJ in a single-discharge spark,” said Ben White, a research engineer for the Kondinin Group, an ...

Static electricity is harmless most of the time, but if you are electrically charged and touch something conductive, you pass that charge on. If you touch metal, you pass the electricity to the metal.

Answer: Static wicks are attached to an airplane to discharge static electricity. The static wicks—sometimes known as static dischargers—are often attached to the thinnest metal surfaces on ...