static normal means unchanging. the same as a constant.It means that the variable is read only. you can display the value but not change it. Best example I can think of is in a video game the starting lives are always the same so you could assign a static variable say STARTLIFE to equal 3 then when a new game starts you can set the current life counter to STARTLIFE. then if you wanted to change the start lives to 5 you just have to change 1 variable and anywhere in the program the value will change.
dont know about the difference in java though.
Mark.
