Question

When a balloon is rubbed against hair, they attract each other because of a difference in what?

Answer 1

charges

Did you ever rub an inflated balloon against your hair? You can see what happens in Figure below . Friction between the rubber of the balloon and the babys hair results in electrons from the hair "rubbing off" onto the balloon. Thats because rubber attracts electrons more strongly than hair does. After the transfer of electrons, the balloon becomes negatively charged and the hair becomes positively charged. As a result, the individual hairs repel each other and the balloon and the hair attract each other. Electrons are transferred in this way whenever there is friction between materials that differ in their ability to give up or accept electrons.