Charges in Electricity

An object becomes charged when electrons from that object are lost to another. It is an imbalance of positive and negative charges. A way that i could give my self a negative charge would be if i rubbed my shoes on a carpet a lot, that makes electrons from my body travel to the carpet. When an atom becomes charged it is called an ion. Atoms are made up of protons, netrons and electrons. Electrons are negative and they orbit around the nuclius, the nuclius has protons which are positive and nuetrons which are negative inside of it.When something becomes polarized it means that on an object the positive and negative charges are on oposite sides of the object because another object with a positive or negative charge is attracting the positives or the negatives. An insulator is a material that electrons canot travel on or through easily, it is a material that does not hold electrons tightly. Examples of insulators are like rubbers. A conductor is a material that conducts electrons and it holds electrons very tightly, they can flow over the conductor easily. Examples of conductors are metals and water. When two objects are electricaly attracted they have one that is more negative and one that is more positive so since like charges attract the positive goes to the negative, this is when objects are electrically attracted. A charged balloon picks up nuetral peices of paper because of polarazation. The charged balloon has an imbalance of positive and negative charges so when it comes close to the paper that has an equal number of positive and negative charges it makes the positive charges on the paper want to go to the balloon to equal out the number of positive and negatives on the object. So as the positive charges are being attracted the paper lifts up to the balloon becaus of the attraction. An Electric felid is the energy around the center of the charge, if the charge was negative it is pushing outwards all around it, that creates a feild of electricity. If there is two chrges and there in each others electric feilds then the two charges act upon eachother depending on if the charge is positive or negative. If you have a positive charge and then you bring another positive charge into that ones feils then the two charges are going to repel from each other, but if one was pos and one was neg then once they were in eachothers feilds they would attract. Each charge has an amount of energy in it, this is called Electric Potential Energy. Say you were holding two positive charges in each hand and they were in eachothers feilds but you just held them a certaine distance apart, there is a resistence you can fel between them an amount of energy that they are repeling away from each other with, that energy that the two charges have is called Electrical Potential Energy, if you let go of the charges they would repel and that energy would be converted to Kinetic Energy which is energy in motion. Electrical Potential Energy is measured in Joules per Columb or in other words Volts.

Van De Graff Expeirience

This lab was very intersting, it gave me a new view on what electricity is and how it can look. It showed me that in some cases static electricity can be seen and felt although it also showed me that even if you do not see or feel the electricity it can still be there. The mashine controled the static electricity so you could phisicaly see or feel it so that was very cool.
When the bubbles were blown at the mashine they went away from it like they were being pushed by some force. So the reason that the bubbles went away from the mashine like they did was probably the because both of the objects had a like charge on them, the mashine and bubbles. So the law says that like charges repel. When i say an object has a positive or negative charge what im saying is that objects are made up of atoms, those atoms can have positive or negative charges based off of how many protons , nuetrons and electrons they have. If there are more nuetrons and protons in an atom then that atom has a positive charge but if there is more electrons then the atom has a negative charge and if there is an equal number of positive and negative charges in an atom then it is nuetral and has no chrage. A charged atom is called an ion and that is the type of charge that deals with static electricity. So if two objects have like charges they repel kind of like when you have two batteries and you try to put them both together on one charge side and they wont go near eachother.
When we all formed a human chain touching the van de graff then turned it on everyone and the mashine were all the same object with a balance of positive and negative charges. So when that mashine was turned off and the chain was attached the entire object was not charged and when it was turned on it created an imbalance of charges the charge of the entire object was positive only so it didnt shock anyone.But it did shock people if someone not attached to the chain touched someone attached because it wants to even out the charges on both sides of the object so the transfer of electricity from someone not attached to someone attached causes a shock.
When the single napkin was set on top of the van de graff it stayed on but the flaps of it all blew up away from the mashine such as hair when an electrical current is being run through it.And then when three napkins were placed on top of the van de graff they all just stayed on because the three napkins became part of the object so the mashine and the napkins equaled out the charges and the transfer of electricity is what kept them together as opposed to when the single napkin blew up because it didnt have as many charges to equal out.
When strips of paper were taped to the sides of the van de graff the strips blew straight upward away from the mashine this is because of the law that says opposites attract and like charges repel. The paper had an equal number of positive and negative charges but once the mashine was turned on it the electrons from the mashine were being given off to the paper causing an imbalance of charges on the object so the positive repeles from the negative causing the paper to fly up.
When cheerios were placed on top of the machine they flew off up into the air in slow motion, this is because the mashine was loosing electrons and had an electron feild going from it so when the cheerios were set on top of it they had an equal number of po. and neg. charges so once the mashine was turned on it created an imbalance because it started loosing electrons and the cheerios were loosing electrons so then the mashine was positive and so were the cheerios and since like charges repel the cheerios flew off.
Questions:
Does a static shock come from the transfer of chrges between two objects to get like charges away from each other?
If there was electricity in a carpet can it be transfered somehow from that to something else?
What is the nuetrons role in an atom?

Intro to Electricity

First I was at station one and I it was the test that you had a balloon filled with air and then there was a bunch of small paper shavings. You had to rub the balloon on your hair causing friction then bring it down to the paper shavings to see what would happen. My hypothisis was that once the balloon was rubed on the hair it would charge the balloon negatively or positively, cause an imbalanced of neg and pos charges. Then once the balloon goes to the paper shavings it would pick them up to cause a balance of charges. This is exactly what happend when the balloon went to the paper, it picked up the pieces and then the charges became equal, the paper was sticking to the balloon because the charges were transfering to create a balance of charges.
At Station Two the two peices of tape once put facing eachother repelled because of the same force in station one opposites attract and likes reppel. I thought that the two peices of tape would not do anything but i was not taking into account the forces.
At station three after we taped down the peices of tape to the table then put the like side towareds each other they reppeled but once we turned one tape around so it was sticky side to slik they attracted.
Questions:
Is there any other forces besides the equal opposites that were acting upon the balloon and tape?
Does the paper stick to the balloon because the charges are tansfering to the paper from the balloon causing a connection?