Everything you know about static electricity is wrong.

From Ars Technica via Wired

 

saw this earlier today, wonder how long it'll take before they stop teaching that

 

Does this mean that nothing is wrong?

 

Chemical reaction? I find that hard to believe.

 

I'm going with Ford on this one. I call BS. Explain lightning then?

 

Sorry guys, if you read the article you know as much as I do. If anyone wants to research it though, I'd be interested.

 

Chemical reaction, maybe you read the article differently than I did.

The simplest explanation I can offer is that this article looks at "nano-scale mosaics" in terms of atomic charges.

On a nano-scale molecule have a charge, just like iron does on a micro scale. These regions are arranged randomly, and thus you don't experience magnetic forces because one tends to be canceled by another. In metals, you can force these regions to align to one direction by passing a directional current through the metal, or exposing it to a magnetic field. The article suggests the same thing, but the charge zones (mosaics in the article) are much much smaller.

Particles are therefore "ripped" off on surface by the friction, and align on the other surface in non-randomized patterns. These patterns are highly directional, and thus form a charge. The "static cling" is simply induced charge between the ripped off particles, and the surface they came from.

I can see this as mildly useful for deposition (the technique used in the production of LCDs and Plasma screens), but otherwise a rather wasteful use of time. It does not change the macro scale application of static charges. Most humans don't tough the micro, let alone nano, scale universe.