What does redefining static methods mean in Java?

Question

I\'ve been reading a section on Statics in the SCJP study guide, and it mentions the following :

static methods can\'t be overridden, but they can be r

Answer 1

It simply means that the functions are not virtual. As an example, say that you have an object of (runtime) type Child which is referenced from a variable of type Parent. Then if you invoke doSomething, the doSomething method of the Parent is invoked:

Parent p = new Child();
p.doSomething(); //Invokes Parent.doSomething

If the methods were non-static, doSomething of Child would override that of Parent and child.doSomething would have been invoked.

The same holds for static fields.