Memory of Previous Contacts Affects Static Electricity

This is interesting, as a layman I have some questions that as you stated nobody know why...

Is that kind of like a memory? or a form of a battery?

It is dissimilar materials, so there must be some type of galvanic reactions happening. but the retention is the interesting part.

It's funny, when electricity was first discovered, it was this static triboelectricity. Now we know lots more about electromagnetic fields and materials but we're still puzzled about triboelectricity.

"Dissimilar materials" is only part of it. In this experiment, all pieces are made of the same material from the same source.

What they did notice was that pieces with a longer history of contact migrated to the negative end of the table.

It's like electrons shuffle off more easily as the surface wears, if that makes any sense.

Maybe the electric field changes the structure of the material so that the electrons can be removed easier the next time.

Interesting,.. your explanation some how made me think a little out of the box

give me some lead way here.

It made me think of a capacitor type that can store + and - and then release???

And with this thinking, since electricity runs positive to negative, almost like a sourcing and sinking sensor. But I haven’t thought it out and rather talking rather loosely.

" ... since electricity runs positive to negative, ..."

Yeah, but the electrons go in the opposite direction. I remember in college being told that Benjamin Franklin took a guess and got it wrong. I don't know how true that is.

It seems possible to me that if this effect could be scaled down to the molecular level, or somewhere near it, that this effect could be used for memory in a machine thought process, but more research is needed to sort out the facts and understand the mechanism....good find

It’s just initiating the static as a 1 and 0 when needed, which is a processor,

It seems like you might be able to control the magnitude of the signal to delineate the difference in confidence of correctness, this enabling getting to the best conclusion faster...

As a layman, I had to read that over twice.., the problem I see is time.

i can see reducing the magnitude (into changing 0 to 1 or Vice versa) it’s kind of like making analog into a discreet signal.

then finding/developing the instruments that can differentiate the sweet spot that differentiates between the 2 conditions. And then isolating it so that stray static??? doesnt Interfere without affected the signal.

yes, this sounds simple… ^{said in a sarcastic voice,}

lol.

Well like the confidence on a scale of say 1 - 100 would take into account the source/s of the information and cross-checked for reliability and all the criteria that lends confidence to the source being correct, this then could determine the magnitude of the charge thus influencing more or larger section of charged particles and then this compared to other sections and total weight of information, thus with each charge varying in magnitude could be made instantly and the overall total of information would give the answer as a function of the process rather than a computation....this would enable several thought processes to take place at once and enable reasoning....

in fewer words, it Sounds like ‘Houston, we have a problem’.

scenario.

I don't know I'm just spitballin' here, but it's not unreasonable to think that at some point in time this will happen with or without this schizophrenic material...you can only move in the direction of something so long before reaching it...then life will evolve with or without us...It's like we're rowing down a river that we know eventually comes to a waterfall, we don't know how high or how far it is, but we know it's there, we have one crowd on one side of the riverbank yelling row faster and another crowd on the other side yelling row slower, all you can really do is just enjoy the ride...

I know you are, so am I, had to read it twice, but there are things that you said that I wasn’t going to let it go… because I was wondering where it’ll lead.

Well I think it will lead to a new alien life form, beyond that who can say...it could destroy us, at least in part...or it could be mostly benign, and aid mankind in our quest for knowledge, be our man Friday so to speak...or it might become unstable and self destruct....It could create a race of biological counterparts to enhance it's understanding of emotions, or merely as an experiment...or it could focus on finding its own space, another planet, like your kids moving out of the house...or it could be all of the above...

For me,… I like to be a little more ‘grounded’.

When I clicked on your PhysicsWorld link, I found no way to avoid selecting "Accept all Cookies", even after visiting their cookies preferences page. I NEVER click on "Accept all Cookies"

I then went to the Physics World page, and had no need to do anything except scroll down to find the article and read it.

It seems logical that the smoother the surface, the more atoms/molecules are actually close enough to be described as "in contact", so more electrons will be transferred.

I think you nailed it. Electrons get scraped off both ways, but as one surface slides over the other, the smoother object has more surface in the game. GA.

Would that be like a covalent bond or more like ionic bond?

..."Static electricity is more similar to an ionic bond because it involves the separation of charges, where one area gains electrons and becomes negatively charged while another loses electrons and becomes positively charged, just like in an ionic bond where one atom completely transfers electrons to another atom creating oppositely charged ions.

In contrast, covalent bonds involve the sharing of electrons between atoms, not a complete transfer, so they wouldn't exhibit the distinct positive and negative charge separation characteristic of static electricity. "...

Seems like there must be another force at work here...

Here’s another thing, when (2) pieces of metal are put together in space, it will permenately bond together. It’s called ‘Cold Welding’.

Here’s a video of it and the early problems.

its interesting, when I worked in the shipyards, after aluminum parts were plasma or router out, it went to dipping to remove the oxides, and the welders had 24 hours to install the aluminum. Anything longer, it’ll have to go to dipping again to remove the oxides.

Yeah probably one of these...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermolecular_force