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ELECTROSTATICS Charge: Charge is the property of matter. It comes out in two varieties, positive and negative.

In MKSI (SI) unit system of units charge is measured in coulombs. Coulombs Law: Coulomb made his experiments in 1785 concerning the nature of the force between charged bodies. Coulombs experiments led to the following conclusions: 1) varied directly with the magnitude of each charge, 2) varied inversely with the square of the distance between them, 3) was directed along the line joining the charges, 4) was attractive if the bodies were oppositely charged and repulsive if the bodies had the same type of charge. It was also shown experimentally that the force produced on one small charged body by a number of the other small charged bodies placed around it, was the vector sum of the individual two-body forces of Coulomb. Mathematically, Coulombs law is expressed as:

F12 =

1 Q1Q 2 aR12 2 4 0 R

Here, 0 is called the permittivity of free space and 1 X 109 0 = 36 Q1 , Q2 are measured in coulombs. R, is measured in meters. F , is measured in Newton. 0 has the unit F/m.

ELECTRIC FIELD, ELECTRIC FIELD INTENSITY VECTOR Consider again the Coulombs law expression:

F=

Q1 1 Q1Q 2 aR = aR Q2 4 0 R 2 4 0 R 2

The term in the parenthesis is a property of the point charge Q1 . The term
Q1 aR 4 0 R 2 , is the electric field due to

Q1 and this is a property of Q1 , independent from the point charge Q2 . If Q2 is there, it experiences the force F , if it is not there, the electric field of Q1 still exists. We denote this electric field as:

E=

Q1 a 2 R 4 0 R

Electric field intensity vector (Volts/meter). Then, F = Q2 E Consider now n point charges in free space: It is known experimentally that superposition principle holds for the total force acting on test charge Qt . So, we can write: Q2Qt ( r r2 ) QnQt ( r rn ) 1 Q1Qt ( r r1 ) F= + + ... + 2 2 r r2 r rn 4 0 r r1 2 r r1 r r2 r rn

Qt n Qi ( r ri ) F= 4 0 i =1 r ri 3

Where r ,is the position vector from the origin to the test
1 charge Qt , and r , r2 ,..., rn are position vectors from the

origin to the point charges Q1 ,Q2 ,..., Qn respectively.

Then the total electric field intensity due to n point charges at point r will be:

E=

1 4 0

i =1

Qi ( r ri ) r ri
3

Continuous Charge Distribution If we have a very large amount of discrete charges in a region of space, it is convenient to define a charge density (volume charge density) as:

q v = lim V 0 (coulomb / m3 ) V

The total charge in this region will then be,

Q = v dv
v

If the charge is distributed on a surface S, the surface charge density is defined as:

q s = lim S 0 (coulomb / m2 ) S

The total charge in this case will be

Q = s ds
s

If the charge is distributed on a contour C, the line charge density is defined as:

q L = lim L0 (coulomb / m) L
With the total charge

Q = L dl
L

The electric field intensity due to L , calculated as

S and v can be

E=

4 0 L 4 0 s 1 1

L ( r r ' ) dl '
r r
' 3

E=

s ( r r ' ) ds '
r r
' 3

E=
respectively.

4 0 v

v ( r r ' ) dv '
r r
' 3

Here, r is the position vector from the origin to the observation point, and

r ' is the position vector from the origin to the source point.

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