Static and current electricity

Abstract

Most objects are electrostatically neutral, because the atoms of which they are composed have equal numbers of positively and negatively charged particles (protons and electrons, see page 140). Rubbing two different materials together, as in Investigation 10.4 (see page 111), does not make charged particles. It merely separates existing negatively charged particles (electrons) from the surface of one object and transfers them to the surface of the other object. As a result of losing electrons one object has more protons than electrons, and so is positively charged. At the same time the other object gains electrons and so becomes negatively charged.