Question

When we rub a comb through the hair, or a glass rod with silk, the comb, and the glass rod becomes charged. It shows that – “Atoms are Indivisible”
A. True
B. False

Answer 1

Hint: An atom is defined as the smallest unit of all the matter and all physical states of matter such as solid, liquid, gas, and plasma are composed of either neutral or ionized atoms. Also, for a given element all atoms have identical mass and properties.

Complete answer:
When we rub a comb through the hair and bring the comb near a few small pieces of paper, the small pieces of paper get attracted to the comb. This is due to the phenomenon that when we comb the hair then some subatomic particles known as electrons move from hair to comb. As we know that the electrons are negatively charged particles thus due to the movement of electrons from hair to comb, the comb will be charged negatively. Similarly when a glass rod is rubbed with silk clothes then the electrons from the glass rod are transferred to the silk cloth. As a result, the glass rod becomes positively charged. These two activities show that objects become electrically charged. As we know all matter is made up of small particles called atoms and atoms are composed of small tiny particles and the three fundamental charged subatomic particles are electrons, protons and neutrons. Thus these activities show that the atom is divisible. So we can say that the given statement that atoms are indivisible is not proved by these activities. Thus the statement is false.

Thus the statement is false.

Note: Proton, electron, and neutrons are the building blocks of an atom that’s why they are called a fundamental particle of an atom. An electron is defined as the elementary particle containing a negative charge equal to $1.602 \times {10^{ - 19}}C$ whereas the protons are defined as those elementary particles which contain a positive charge and the neutrons are the neutral particles.