Submitted 1 day ago by emotional_soup_88@programming.dev to [deleted]
You rub two insulators against each other and attain a charge imbalance. Is there a rule as to which of the materials will end up with a negative charge and vice versa? Does it depend on which one has more or less loose valence electrons?
Bro, I got some wool, a balloon, and a copper wire.
Make your best offer. Starting price $1 for 58 electrons.
Sweet! Let me just… mumble mumble 6.241509×10^18^ divided by 58 mumble mumble $107,612,224,137,931,034.4827586207 for 1 amp? You’re gonna go bankrupt YESTERDAY. Just out of pity, let me give you $1 for 50 electrons?
Can you do $51 for ∞ electrons?
I just really need $51 is all.
One of those times where losing and loosing are both arguably correct.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who noticed that amusing Schrödinger’s misspelling.
Aah shet. I’m not a native speaker. 😂
To be fair, they both have the same root origin. Even native speakers get it wrong often.
The short answer is, to “lose” means to have lost something (e.g. “Did you lose your keys?”, but in this case it’s electrons) while to “loose” is used to describe getting something to be able to move freely / unstuck (which could arguably be used to describe the loss of electrons in a material, since you’re rubbing them loose)
It’s particularly amusing because this is a very rare example of when either spelling could be correct in this context without changing the meaning at all.
Does it depend on which one has more or less loose valence electrons?
I think that’s a reasonable rule of thumb to start from, but like most things in physics it’s not guaranteed and is rarely exactly that simple.
fullsquare@awful.systems 1 day ago
there is empirical series of materials sorted from which one is most likely to lose vs gain electrons, but what exactly happens is one of unsolved problems in physics
GreyEyedGhost@piefed.ca 1 day ago
Here’s a link to an article talking about it, including a small list of materials and if they will lose or gain electrons. I found that with a quick search, more or better ones can be found, I’m sure. I chose this one because it has the split between gain and loss, which others don’t.
dreamy@quokk.au 1 day ago
I think you linked another website on accident.