Charge in Your Daily Life

Touch a metal doorknob after walking on carpet and you feel electrostatic discharge. Your shoes stripped electrons from the carpet, charge built up on your body, and thousands of volts release in a fraction of a second. It stings instead of killing because the discharge is extremely brief and carries very little total charge and energy. Lightning is the same idea scaled up: charge separation in clouds builds millions of volts until the air itself breaks down. Static cling works this way too, and synthetic fabrics are worse because they hold charge longer than natural fibers like cotton.