Paragraph on “How can your comb pick up a piece of paper?” complete paragraph for Class 9, Class 10, Class 11 and Class 12

How can your comb pick up a piece of paper?

Have you ever noticed that if your hair is dry and you comb it with a plastic comb it flies out, each hair seeming to float away from the others ! Have you ever seen bits of dust or paper cling to the comb you have just used these strange things are due to electricity. When you comb your hair, this creates what is known as an electric charge on the comb. There are two sorts of electric charge. We call one positive indicated by a ‘ + ‘ sign and the other by a negative or ‘ – ‘ sign. All matter has an electric charge but usually it has an equal amount of positive charge and negative charge. What has happened to the comb is that it has lost some of its negative charge onto your hair. This means that it is left with more positive electricity than negative — it positively charged.

Two things with different electric charges attract each other. So, if one has a positive charge and the other has a negative charge they will pull towards each other. If some-thing has a strong charge it will even affect ordinary uncharged matter. This is why the charged comb attracts pieces of paper.

Things with the same electric charge repel each other. This means that two negatively charged things will push away from each other. Because the comb left some of it. negative charge in your hair, the hair is left negatively charged. This is why you may be able to make your hair stand out, with each hair repelling all the others.