What electric charge is and how it behaves. Conservation and quantisation of charge, Coulomb's law, the force of one charge on another, and the net force when several charges act together.
3 lessons, about 1 h 50 min4 simulations11 problems6 practice questionsPython in every lesson
Created by StemPy LabThere are two kinds of charge, positive and negative. Like charges repel and unlike charges attract. In rubbing, only electrons move. A body can be charged by contact or by induction. Charge is additive, it is conserved, and it comes in whole multiples of the electron charge, with C.
The force between two point charges is , along the line that joins them, with . Like charges repel and unlike charges attract, and the two forces are equal and opposite. In a medium the force is divided by the dielectric constant .
The force between two charges is not changed by other charges, so the net force on a charge is the vector sum of the forces from all the others: . On a line the forces add with signs. In a plane we add components. Between two like charges there is a point where the net force on a third charge is zero, nearer the smaller charge.
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