Question

You have just pulled your clothes from the dryer and find that a sock is clinging to your jeans with static electricity. You hold the jeans in one hand and the sock in the other and pull the two apart. As the jeans and sock move apart, the forces between them become weaker because the

A) Electric charge on each garment increases as they move apart.
B) Electric current passing through each garment diminishes as they move apart.
C) Electric charge on each garment diminishes as they move apart
D) Distance between the garments increase

Answer 1

Answer: D) Distance between the garments increase

Step-by-step explanation:

The force between charges can be written as:

F = k*q1*q2/r^2

where k is a constant, q1 and q2 is the electrical charge of both charges, and r is the distance between the charges.

When you took the clothes of the dryer, because of the friction inside of it some clothes may stolen/lost electrons, this means that some clothes may be positively charged and others negatively charged, and as you may remember, positive and negative charges attract.

Now, as you move the jeans and sock apart, you are increasing the value of r (the distance) and r is in the denominator, so if r increases, this means that the force F must decrease.

This means that the force becomes weaker because the distance between the garments increases.