Pollen Particle Attracted to TV due to Which Force?

Question

A pollen particle has no charge so I cannot understand how the Lorentz force $\bar{F} = q \bar{E} + q(\bar{v} \times \bar{B} )$ could explain the event. I speculated that it is because of the electric field that is generated to the dipole with a charge in the TV and the distance, more here. I have not yet confirmed that it would attract the pollen particle. Any better ideas?

Answer 1

CRT displays have a fairly strong electric charge and this induces a dipole moment in the pollen particle itself causing it to be attracted to the screen.

Somewhat related, the hairs on the bodies of some bees become electrically charged and this attracts pollen particles. Exercise 51 on page 602 of this document http://cyber.gwc.cccd.edu/faculty/kstein/H_R_Ch_22.pdf will give you a ball park figure for the possible strength of this attraction. It assumes a neutral pollen particle.

Answer 2

I do not know to what special pollen your professor refers to, but pollen is often charged at least as this measurement described in the publication abstract found:

Under fair weather conditions, a weak electric field exists between negative charge induced on the surface of plants and positive charge in the air. This field is magnified around points (e.g. stigmas) and can reach values up to 3×106 V m−1. If wind-dispersed pollen grains are electrically charged, the electrostatic force (which is the product of the pollen's charge and the electric field at the pollen's location) could influence pollen capture. In this article, we report measurements of the electrostatic charge carried by wind-dispersed pollen grains. Pollen charge was measured using an adaptation of the Millikan oil-drop experiment for seven anemophilous plants. Acer rubrum, Cedrus atlantica, Cedrus deodara, Juniperus virginiana, Pinus taeda, Plantago lanceolata and Ulmus alata. All species had charged pollen, some were positive others negative. The distributions (number of pollen grains as a function of charge) were bipolar and roughly centered about zero although some distributions were skewed towards positive charges. Most pollen carried small amounts of charge, 0.8 fC in magnitude, on average. A few carried charges up to 40 fC. For Juniperus, pollen charges were also measured in nature and these results concurred with those found in the laboratory. For nearly all charged pollen grains, the likelihood that electrostatics influence pollen capture is evident.