A housefly walking across a clean surface can accumulate a significant positive or negative charge. In one experiment, the largest positive charge observed was +73 pCpC. A typical housefly has a mass of 12 mgmg. How many electrons does it lose to the surface it is walking across?

Explanation:

Since the fly accumulated a positive charge of +73pC, it must have lost an equal number of negative charge of -73pC to the surface (because the housefly was neutral to begin with).

Therefore, to answer our question we have to ask ourselves how many electrons combine to make -73pC of charge?

The answer is since one electron carries a charge of , the number of electrons that make up -73pC are

Thus, the housefly lost about 456 million electrons to the surface!

an energy transformation flow diagram is shown

where is it ?