Dad Science: Bending Water

Turn your bathroom sink into a physics lab. How to use a simple plastic comb to bend a stream of water and teach your kids about molecular polarity.

A stream of tap water curving towards a static-charged plastic comb, demonstrating the polarity of water molecules.

Bending Water

You don’t need to be a Jedi to move water with your mind.

Water looks like a liquid, but down at the atomic level, it looks like Mickey Mouse. Two Hydrogen ears (Positive) and one Oxygen face (Negative). Because it has both charges, you can grab it without touching it.

The Setup:

  1. Turn on your bathroom faucet to a very thin stream. It needs to be a steady thread of water, not a full blast.

  2. Take a cheap plastic comb and run it through your hair 10 times. Fast. You want to hear it crackle.

The Magic: Bring the teeth of the comb close to the water—about an inch away—but don’t touch it. The stream will bend. It will curve toward the comb like it’s alive.

The Why: You stripped electrons from your hair onto the comb (Negative charge). The water molecules instantly spin so their positive “ears” face the comb. Opposites attract, and the entire stream gets pulled sideways. You just controlled matter with an invisible force field.

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