Can water be bent?

What you need:

A plastic comb, A tap and A head fall of hair.

What to do:

  1. Turn on the tap so that you have a thin but continuous stream of flowing water.
  2. Run the comb through your hair a few times.
  3. Now, slowly bring the comb close to the stream of water without touching it.

What happens?

The line of water bends towards the comb!

Why?

The answer is ‘static electricity’. ‘Static’ means stationary as opposed to ‘current’ which implies flow of charges. When you rub two objects against each other (like your hair and the comb), they develop stationary electrical charges. To understand why this happens, we have to go to the microscopic level. Everything in our world is made up of tiny particles called ‘atoms’. These atoms are, in turn, made up of even smaller particles known as electros, protons and neutrons. The protons and neutrons remain inside the atom but the electrons keep looking for excuses to jump in and out of the atom.

When you rub two objects together, the electrons from one object jump to the other. This exchange of electrons is what is termed as ‘electrical charge’.

So, when you take a charged comb close to the running water, its electrical charge affects the water, in this case, attracting the water towards it. That makes the water bend!

Picture Credit : Google

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