If a balloon is made of Mylar(alumized plastic) instead of rubber, would it stick to a wall if you rubbed the balloon against a wool sweater?

Question

If a charged balloon is held a distance "d" above some paper bits they start to move. If the balloon is moved half as close, by how much has the force on the paper bits changed?

Answer 1

They probably mean aluminized Mylar.
Mylar itself is just the plastic film.

To the first question, the answer is probably no. The conducting metal layer would allow excess charge to go back to the wool. Try it and see, if you have any aluminized Mylar ballons around.

To the last question, consider the inverse square dependence upon distance in Coulomb's Law.

Answer 2

I totally forgot about that formula-so then the magnitude would be decreased by a factor of 1/2 raised to the second power- would it be 1/4 or .25

Answer 3

yes on #2, glad you remembered the Coulomb's Law formula

Answer 4

Thanks for confirming it