Week 23 Reflection

This week in chemistry we started talking about conductivity and the charges that deal with it. We first did an experiment with three regular lengths of scotch tape. We put a first piece of tape on the lab table with a little part hanging off and folded it over, so it would be easy to take pull off. Same with the second and third pieces of tape, which were placed on top of each other also with tabs folded over. We pulled the 2nd and 3rd apart and when we brought them back close to each other they attracted one another. “So obviously there is some kind of force! That is reacting upon them.” We tested the pieces of tape on other materials like tine foil and copper. Strangely when one piece of tape would attract the other would repel away. Next Mr. Abud took a glass rod and rubbed up against his tie and clearly making friction. But we charged the glass rod with wool and moved it toward the pieces of tape and again they were opposite (one attracted one repelled). This evidence was far along for Mr. Abud to tell us that there are things called charges. And these charges are very small things even smaller than an atom. I personally never thought there was something smaller than an atom; that shocked me completely! You see a charge is created by friction, which we demonstrated like before with the tie, glass rod and tape and there different charges. So now we have the identity of what is happening with charges, “We know that they are there” all around us on any surface, so stronger than other. But we still don’t have a completely understanding of how a charge even works. Mr. Abud asked to pull up a scientist called J.J. Thompson, we found out he was the man who worked on atoms and studied them profusely. His model is like saying atoms are suspended in a type of “plum pudding” with positive charges being the pudding goop and the negative charges being the fruit or nuts-I personally like to think of it as (yogurt) I’m not sure why, I just it’s an easier why of picturing it. After another day we weren't quite finished yet because if there is a positive and a negative that doesn't explain why there isn't an attraction between two objects such as: a pen and a piece of paper. When you rubbed paper or a pencil enough friction you only get fire! So why did the tape attract and then not attract to the glass rod before we ripped them apart? There must be neutral charges because if there weren't we all might be stuck to a wall. So when the tapes didn't attract before we ripped them, ripping them must caused friction between the two and caused the electrons to transfer over to one of them making the other wanting to attract or to stabilize the solution. I’m still learning about this so I apologize I’m ending it short, but till next time. Have a good read!