Turning On/Off Lamp With Static Electricity

So while sitting at my desk rubbing my feet against the rubber chair mat, I noticed I was building up static electricity. What’s even cooler is that when I touch my keyboard tray, it actually turns off my lamp. If I do it again, it turns the lamp back on. My lamp is one of those touch sensor type lamps where it turns on/off just by touching it. However, I never knew electricity could flow through glass like that as I have a glass table. There are metallic parts, but the laptop itself isn’t touch anything metallic.

Here’s my little video demonstration (high and low resolutions respectively):

Turning Lamp On and Off With Static Electricity - Large Turning Lamp On and Off With Static Electricity - Small

6 Replies to “Turning On/Off Lamp With Static Electricity”

  1. haha. unfortunately i just shaved it off like 30 minutes ago. i thought i might try some facial hair, but it was starting to annoy me.

    i might try it again later.

  2. Oh also, for all transparent materials, theyre all insulators. (there are obvious some exceptions, but these are exotic materials). so that glass table should NOT be able to conduct electricity at all. which is kind of weird why it is doing that….

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