Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff, I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and this is another classic episode from our previous host, Christian Sager. For me, one of the weirdly comforting things about science is that it always leaves itself open to further questioning and exploration. You can almost always dig deeper. And that's the case with today's question, why do balloons stick to our hair? Hey, brain Stuff?
Is Christian Sager here. When you were a kid, did you ever rub a balloon really fast against your hair to make it stick? What about as an adult? Well, after many years of speculation, Case Western Reserve University scientists have pinpointed exactly why this party trick happens. We've known forever that when two objects are rubbed against each other there's a build up of an electrical charge called static electricity or tribo electric charging. If the two objects have
opposite charges positive and negative, they'll stick together. But some objects appear to charge more or stick more closely together than others, like the balloon on your hair. Now, why is that? According to a new study published in the journal Physical Review Materials, the crux of the phenomenon lies and how strained the balloon material is. For the purpose of this study, the scientists stretched a film of polytetrafluoroethylene. Let's just call it PTFE for now. That's one of
the brand names for Teflon. They took that and they rubbed it against a film of unstrained unstretched ptf E, and they found that even though the materials were chemically identical, they generated charge transfer in one direction as if they had two different chemical compositions. The stretched or strange sheet carried the positive charge, while the unstranged sheet carried a negative charge. The more strained the material was, the more
likely it was to experience systematic charge transfer. This is because the micro structure of the material was altered when strained, leading to tiny holes and cracks. These imperfections allowed the rubbing induced friction to facilitate charge transfer, leading to static electricity. In a press release, co authored Dan Lax explained that they think the void regions and the fibrils these are
tiny cell fibers. They think that those were strained when the polymer had different bonding and thus a charge that was different. The researchers also examined the phenomenon using packing peanuts which just love to stick to people's arms. In fact, polystyrene peanuts and plastic bags are currently being closely examined
to give us a better understanding of static electricity. Ideally, scientists will nail it down so precisely that they will be able to control it, helping to prevent tribe electric explosions such as explosions of cold dust in minds, and develop more effective products, for example, pesticides that will stick better to plants or paints that will stick better to cars. It may not seem that dangerous, but in fact static electricity can ignite fuel vapors at the gas pump, causing fire.
To avoid such a catastrophe, try not to get back in the car after you start the fueling process, because sliding across the seat generates static electricity. If you must re enter your vehicle, be sure to ground yourself first when you get back out by touching the metal part of your car door. Today's episode was written by Lee A. Hooint and produced by Dylan Fagan and Tyler Clang. For more on this and lots of other topics, visit how
stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is production of iHeart Radio or more podcasts in my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H