What makes opposite charges attract

When you are rubbing the glass rod with the silk cloth, electrons are stripped away from the atoms in the glass and transferred to the silk cloth. This leaves the glass rod with more positive than negative charge, so you get a net positive charge. When a glass rod is rubbed with neutral silk, the glass becomes positively charged. The rubbing will strip the atoms of the rod of their electrons, which are negatively charged, leaving the rod to be positively charged.

The silk will acquire these extra electrons, becoming negatively charged. When you rub fur with ebonite rod, the chemical bond is formed between some parts of the the two surface. Due to excess of electrons in rod, it becomes negatively charged while the fur with lost electrons, becomes deficient of electrons. Thus, fur becomes positively charged. The new electrostatic force will be 16 times greater if the charge on both spheres is doubled and the separation distance is halved.

Which diagram represents the force between the two charges? What is the electrical force between q1 and q2? You just studied 8 terms! Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search. Press ESC to cancel. Skip to content Home Physics What causes opposite charges to attract? Ben Davis March 23, What causes opposite charges to attract? What happens to two negative charges that are near each other? Do negative charges attract? Can two bodies having like charges attract each other?

A nice discussion of this can be found in our answer. All this might sound like a long-winded and pointless description of the obvious. For gravity, all objects attract. So for gravity likes attract, and there are no opposites. For nuclear forces, the situation is more complicated, but you need more than three categories of objects.

Follow-up on this answer. Related Questions. An atom that loses electrons has more positive charges protons than negative charges electrons.

It is positively charged. An atom that gains electrons has more negative than positive particles. It has a negative charge. A charged atom is called an "ion. Some materials hold their electrons very tightly. Electrons do not move through them very well. These things are called insulators. Plastic, cloth, glass and dry air are good insulators. Other materials have some loosely held electrons, which move through them very easily. These are called conductors. Most metals are good conductors.

How can we move electrons from one place to another? One very common way is to rub two objects together. If they are made of different materials, and are both insulators, electrons may be transferred or moved from one to the other. The more rubbing, the more electrons move, and the larger the static charge that builds up. Scientists believe that it is not the rubbing or friction that causes electrons to move. It is simply the contact between two different materials. Rubbing just increases the contact area between them.

Now, positive and negative charges behave in interesting ways. Did you ever hear the saying that opposites attract? Well, it's true. Two things with opposite, or different charges a positive and a negative will attract, or pull towards each other. Things with the same charge two positives or two negatives will repel, or push away from each other.

A charged object will also attract something that is neutral. Think about how you can make a balloon stick to the wall. If you charge a balloon by rubbing it on your hair, it picks up extra electrons and has a negative charge.

Holding it near a neutral object will make the charges in that object move. If it is a conductor, many electrons move easily to the other side, as far from the balloon as possible. If it is an insulator, the electrons in the atoms and molecules can only move very slightly to one side, away from the balloon.