A balloon and a section of a wall both have neutral charges, as shown below.

Question

A student rubs his hair on the balloon, giving it a negative charge. How will the charges be arranged in the wall when it is placed near the negatively changed balloon?

The wall will have negative charges on the the side closer to the balloon
The wall will have negative charges on the the side closer to the balloon

The wall will now have all positive charges and no negative charges
The wall will now have all positive charges and no negative charges

The wall will have its positive charges on the side closer to the balloon
The wall will have its positive charges on the side closer to the balloon

The charges in the wall will not change or rearrange at all.

GPT-4o mini · Answer

When a negatively charged balloon is brought near a neutral wall, the charges in the wall will rearrange due to electrostatic induction.

A negatively charged object, such as the balloon, will repel the negative charges (electrons) in the wall, causing them to move away from the side of the wall nearest the balloon. This results in the side of the wall closest to the balloon becoming positively charged (due to a deficiency of electrons), while the side farther from the balloon retains a negative charge.

Therefore, the correct answer is:

The wall will have its positive charges on the side closer to the balloon.