Question
When the balloon is brought closer to the sphere, there will be a redistribution of charges. What is this phenomenon called?
  1. electrostatic repulsion
  2. conduction
  3. polarization
  4. none of the above
<b>Figure 18.60</b> A charged balloon and a metal sphere.
Figure 18.60 A charged balloon and a metal sphere.
Question by OpenStax is licensed under CC BY 4.0
Final Answer

(c)

Solution video

OpenStax College Physics for AP® Courses, Chapter 18, Problem 13 (Test Prep for AP® Courses)

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Video Transcript
This is College Physics Answers with Shaun Dychko. This sphere is neutral and these X and Y are just referred to terminals on a pantograph generator, that's not important, you could ignore those. So, what we see here is a metal sphere and the fact that it's metal means that the charges in it are movable, the electrons can flow. And so they're going to be attracted to this side of the ball because of this positively charged balloon nearby. And this will leave the other side of the metal sphere positive since electrons came from there and went over to this side closest to the balloon. This redistribution of charges is called induced polarization, so the answer is c.