Bending Water
So why does your hair stand up after you take your hat off?
When you pull your hat off, it rubs against your hair. Electrons move from your hair to the hat. Now each of the hairs has the same positive charge. Things with the same charge repel each other. So the hairs try to move away from each other. The farthest they can get is to stand up and away from all the other hairs.
Here's a quick simple experiment in the science of static electricity. Static Electricity is the imbalance of positive and negative charges
What you need:
A hard rubber or plastic comb, or a balloon, a sink and a water tap
What you do:
Turn on the water tap so that the water runs out in a small steady stream.
Charge the comb or balloon by running it through long dry hair several times or rub it vigorously on a sweater.
Slowly bring the comb near but not in the water. Now watch the water "bend"
Why it happens
Everything we see is made up of tiny little parts called atoms. The atoms are made of even smaller parts. These are called protons, electrons and neutrons. They are very different from each other in many ways. One way they are different is their "charge." Protons have a positive (+) charge. Electrons have a negative (-) charge. Neutrons have no charge.
Usually atoms have the same number of electrons and protons and we would say the atom has no charge, it is "neutral." But if you rub things together, electrons can move from one atom to another. Some atoms get extra electrons and they will have a negative charge. Other atoms lose electrons; they have a positive charge. When charges are separated like this, it is called static electricity.
If two things have different charges, they attract, or pull toward each other. If two things have the same charge, they repel, or push away from each other. A charged object will also attract something that is neutral.
So back to our bending water. The comb or balloon got "charged" when you rubbed it through your hair. Because the water is neutral (has no charge), the comb attracted, or pulled the water towards it. Hey, bending water!