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Static electricity is an electric current that is not moving as it ordinarily moves in an alternating AC or direct current DC. It is caused when two insulator surfaces as shoes and carpet, hair and cap, etc,. each with a different number of protons and electrons move against each other. The shoes, in this example, would be electrically charged since they have picked up electrons from the carpet. The sparks then fly when the person wearing the shoes touches metal.

All matter is made up of atoms. Matter is made different by the different types of atoms. Discovered thus far are 115. Atoms are the smallest indivisible portion of matter. Large objects are made up of many atoms, smaller particles or portions of matter are made up of fewer atoms. Each atom has a nucleus, or a center containing neutrons and protons. Orbiting around this center or nucleus are electrons. Protons are positively charged while electrons are negatively charged.

When an atom contains equal amounts of protons and equal amounts of electrons there is no charge. Unequal numbers attract. Sameness where matter is concerned is of no consequence. How then do atoms become charges? Surfaces move against each other and build up friction by having the negative electrons move from one atom to another.

In the example of the shoe and the carpet, electrons from the carpet move into the shoe or into the person's foot if they are wearing no shoes. Wham, touch a nail file and you get a shock. Most metal is a good conductor of electricity and so is water. Glass and fabric, and dry air and plastic are good insulators and do not promote electrical activity. Yet let your charged object - as an example, a balloon you have rubbed on your dry hair - loose and it will make for the ceiling and hover there until it loses some of its electrons and then, without the force of the ceiling reaching out for it, it falls.

Matter that loses negatively charged electrons becomes more positive. That's makes sense since protons carry positive charges. Matter that gains electrons becomes more negatively charged. In either case, where losing or gaining electrons, a charged atom - the makeup of matter - is an ion.

How do we know when an item has static electricity? We see the sparks fly or are zapped by a small amount of the static electricity suddenly becoming active and moving into a surface that allows it to become active. Fewer carpets are static electricity generators now than once before since their fibers are probably preventatively

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