Weird question about static shock

Factual Questions
1

The facts:
I went to the gym tonight and ran an hour on the tread mill.

I was wearing a tee-shirt and a pair of Jockey jogging pants.

The Jockey jogging pants are made of 100% polyester.

I was using a pair of in-the-ear-ear plugs that I bought at Big Lots last week for $5.

These are not the first set of in-the-ear-ear plugs I have used from Big Lots. I’ve used this type for a long, long time. I only have a new pair because last week I mistakenly left a pair in my sweat pants pockets and they went through the wash and got destroyed.:smack:

As far as I can see, the ear plugs are made mostly of plastic with some rubber on the part that goes into the ear canal. Of course there is a small amount of metal in the wire that leads from the connection up into the ear plug.

The situation:

About 5 minutes into my run I was experiencing an unusual sensation in my right ear. I adjusted the plug. The sensation continued about every 30 seconds. I adjusted the plug. I was incredulous as the sensation felt like a very mild shock.
The sensation continued. After 10 minutes of this I concluded I was getting a mild shock in my ear.

I took the right plug out and continued running with the left plug in. Now the sensation began happening in my left ear. Zap![30 seconds elapse]Zap![30 seconds elapse]ZAP![and so on].

I’m thinking my polyester jogging pants are building up static. But why would the charge follow up through plastic/rubber ear plugs and jolt my ear?

WTF?:confused:

2

Rubber and plastic are not a perfect insulators. If you want to insulate against higher voltages then you need a thicker amount of insulating material. Static electricity is fairly high in voltage, being several thousand volts, and basically the thin plastic from your earphone wire isn’t enough to insulate against it. So the static is discharging into your earphone wire and then through you.

Polyester is a good material for building up charge, as is wool (not that you are likely to wear wool while exercising). Wear cotton if you don’t want to get zapped.

3

agree that polyester is good static producer. legs rubbing just like sliding across a seat produces static charge.

4

But why would it follow up the ear plug wires? They were plugged into the television that is on the tread mill, not into anything that was near my pants

5

It wasn’t travelling “up” it was the charge in your body using them to reach “ground” through the treadmill.