The Earth carries a negative electric charge of roughly 500 thousand Coulombs (according to different sources I've seen). If I touch the Earth I should therefore pick up some of this electric charge (through conduction) and become negative charged. Assuming the Earth can modeled as a conducting...
Thanks bhobba and andrien! OK, here is a related follow up question... First let me quote the wiki pages for the superposition principle and Pauli Exclusion principle state:
"[Quantum superposition] holds that a physical system—such as an electron—exists partly in all its particular...
I was taught that a particle is assigned to a unique quantum state. As a specific example, two bound electrons can't have the same quantum numbers in an atom. And likewise one and only bound electron is assigned to one quantum state in an atom. Yet, I am reading several solid state books and...