Question

A housefly walking across a surface may develop a significant electric charge through a process similar to frictional charging. Suppose a fly picks up a charge of +62 pC.
How many electrons does it lose to the surface it is walking across?

Answer 1

Answer:

Number of electrons, $n=3.87\times 10^8\ electrons$

Explanation:

Given that,

Charge on the fly, $q=62\ pC=62\times 10^{-12}\ C$

Let n is the number of electrons lose to the surface it is walking across. It is case of quantization of electric charge. It is given by :

$q=ne$

$n=\dfrac{q}{e}$

$n=\dfrac{62\times 10^{-12}}{1.6\times 10^{-19}}$

n = 387500000 electrons

or

$n=3.87\times 10^8\ electrons$

So, there are $3.87\times 10^8$ electrons. Hence, this is the required solution.