Rub a balloon against your hair.

Pull off a sweater.

Walk across a carpet.

Touch a metal object.

Zap.

And suddenly, your hair starts standing up.

It looks almost like your hair is being pulled upward by some invisible force.

But that's exactly what is happening.

In Why Static Electricity Makes Your Hair Stand Up, we explore the surprising physics behind static electricity, electric charge, and the reason individual strands of hair repel one another.

Static electricity begins with something incredibly small:

Electrons.

When two different materials rub against each other, electrons can transfer from one surface to another.

One object becomes more negatively charged.

The other becomes more positively charged.

Your body and your hair  ...