How to avoid getting shocked

Question

sometimes I get "charged" and the next thing I touch something that conducts electricity such as a person, a car, a motal door, etc I get shocked...

I'm trying to avoid this so if I suspect being "charged" I try to touch something that does not conduct electricity (such as a wooden table) as soon as possible, in the belief that this will "uncharge me".

• Is it true that touching wood will uncharge you?
• How and when do I get charged? I noticed that it happens only in parts of the years, and after I get out of the car...

Answer 1

Carry some metal in your pocket. When you suspect you are carrying an electric charge, take the metal (a coin?) out of your pocket and touch it to something grounded.

Answer 2

My brother, an electrical engineer, used to carry around a 1 megaohm resistor during the dry winter months when you easily get a shock after walking across a carpet and touching a light switch or another person. If you hold one lead of the resistor in your hand and touch the light switch or whatever else you are touching with the other the discharge turns from a nasty shock into a very mild and kind of amusing fizzle. It's kind of fun and I'm sure you can find a resistor with large enough resistance lying around in your local physics lab, so give it a try! Of course I don't know anybody geeky enough to actually use this as a practical solution.

Answer 3

Free or nearly-free electrons on stuff like wool are getting rubbed off onto you so that your body holds some sort of net total electric charge. When you touch a metal door (or any piece of metal) then the electrons want to spread out to balance themselves between you and the metal. Since the metal conducts electricity very well, they fly off you very quickly which heats up the air in between you and the metal, giving you the painful "shock" feeling.

Wood won't uncharge you very well, since it doesn't conduct electricity very well. The only ways to prevent getting shocked are either not building up charge in the first place, or constantly touching metal so that the charges get released way before they can build up - in effect spreading out your shocks to many smaller shocks you can't feel.

There are many ways to build up a static charge, but it is generally much, much easier when the air is dry. Since cold air is drier, this means you probably build up a charge more quickly in the winter.

As for how you build up charge in the first place, it is usually by rubbing certain materials together. Plastic or rubber rubbing against wool carpeting or clothes (or any sort of hair) will do it, which is the most common cause for people in their day-to-day lives. If you want to stop it, you could consider using dryer sheets, which use a substance which happens to be conductive to soften your clothes - this makes you constantly discharge as you touch your own clothes, so you achieve the "many tiny shocks" method alluded to above. Or, you could use a humidifier in your home, which adds water to the air, making static much harder to build up.

Answer 4

That's incredibly annoying, I agree. Can I make a joke with physics content here? I always thought a great idea would be to carry a capacitor with you. Then, from time to time, you discharge yourself with it (probably with a resistor, so that you actually avoid getting shocked), charging the capacitor. When you pass by that person you don't like very much, you discharge the capacitor at him. See?, two problems solved at once.

:)

Now that the joke is told, let me try to answer the questions:

• Is it true that touching wood will uncharge you?

No, you have to touch a conductor. Wood won't work.

• How and when do I get charged? I noticed that it happens only in parts of the years, and after I get out of the car...

It happens when the air is very dry. I used to live in a city where the humidity in the air is huge and that never happened. In the winter the air gets very dry and these shocks are more common. So, you can move to a rain forest and your problem will also be solved.

Answer 5

Here is a list how to slowly discharge before getting out of the car: http://www.wikihow.com/Get-out-of-a-Car-Without-Getting-Shocked-by-Static-Electricity

I remember trucks used to have a trailing chain to discharge any accumulation from the friction of wheels. These days the design must take care of that because one no longer sees this.

Answer 6

This happens to me all the time; I collect an electrostatic charge just sitting at the computer; earlier Sir Dumpty often was the medium for discharge - an audible zzzt as my accumulated charge discharged through his snout when he came to snuffle against my arm/hand/palm.

A simple solution would probably be to touch the floor/earth; do not touch metal if you can avoid it.