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General Physics - E&M (PHY 1308) General Physics - E&M (PHY 1308)

This document provides lecture notes on electric charge and Coulomb's law. It defines electric charge, discusses that it comes in positive and negative varieties, and is conserved. Charge is quantified using the coulomb unit and electrons and protons both carry the elementary charge of ±1.6×10-19 C. Coulomb's law is introduced, which describes the relationship between the electric force between two point charges and their quantities, distance, and signs.

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Ahmed Fawzi
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30 views4 pages

General Physics - E&M (PHY 1308) General Physics - E&M (PHY 1308)

This document provides lecture notes on electric charge and Coulomb's law. It defines electric charge, discusses that it comes in positive and negative varieties, and is conserved. Charge is quantified using the coulomb unit and electrons and protons both carry the elementary charge of ±1.6×10-19 C. Coulomb's law is introduced, which describes the relationship between the electric force between two point charges and their quantities, distance, and signs.

Uploaded by

Ahmed Fawzi
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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General Physics - E&M (PHY 1308) - Lecture Notes file:///home/sekula/Dropbox/Documents/Notebook...

General Physics - E&M (PHY 1308) Lecture


Notes

Lecture 002: Electric Charge and Coulomb's Law (Wolfson


20.1-20.2)
SteveSekula, 24 January 2011 (created 19 August 2010)

no tags

Main Goals of this Lecture

Define basic concepts in electricity: charge, units of charge, and force


Define the mathematical relationship between charge and force
exerted by one charge on another (Coulomb's Law)

Activities in this Lecture

1. Demonstrations of the electric force


2. The origin of electric force: electric charge
a. Student Discussion: what is electric charge? See if they have any
answers. (2 minutes)
3. Description of electric charge: fundamental measure, units,
conventions for signs, examples of charges (electron, proton),
conservation of charge
4. Interactive Effort: using the atomic theory of matter, predict what
should happen to a candle flame in the presence of an electric field?

Electric Charge

What is "electric charge"?


fundamentally, nobody really knows the answer to that yet
don't lose heart! Fundamentally, nobody really know what "mass" is
either - however, we are familiar with mass because we spend our

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General Physics - E&M (PHY 1308) - Lecture Notes file:///home/sekula/Dropbox/Documents/Notebook...

lives pushing things around.


we understand "electric charge" in the same way that we
understand "mass" - through observations of the natural world,
careful measurement, and the use of the language of mathematics
to express observations, develop frameworks to describe the world
and make predictions about the outcomes of experiments

Here are some things we DO know about electric charge


It comes in two varieties - positive and negative
Benjamin Franklin - yes, one of the Founders of the United
States - is credited with devising this naming scheme
this naming scheme is VERY useful, because it connects
directly to an observation: the total charge in any system is
THE ALGEBRAIC SUM OF THE INDIVIDUAL CHARGES IN
THE SYSTEM. For instance,
N
X
qtotal = q1 + q2 + q3 + ::: = qi
i=1

It is a property that is "carried" by particles like electrons and


protons

Total electric charge in a defined system (e.g. an enclosed region)


is CONSERVED - that is, no matter what happens to the system the
total charge cannot change. Charged particles may be created, or
they may be annihilated, in various physical processes, but those
processes cannot change the total electric charge.

Electric Charge Demonstrations

Van de Graaf generator - sparks and lightning and shocks


Capacitor + candle: demonstrate the behavior of ions in an electric
force field
Balloon simulator

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General Physics - E&M (PHY 1308) - Lecture Notes file:///home/sekula/Dropbox/Documents/Notebook...

Quantities of Charge

All electrons carry the same charge. All protons carry the same charge.
The proton's charge has exactly the same MAGNITUDE as, but the
opposite sign of, the electron's charge.

Given that the electron and proton are so different in many other ways
(e.g. mass, radius, etc.) this is a remarkable fact.

The magnitude of the electron or proton charge is the elementary


charge, e. Electrons have charge Àe, and protons have charge +e. Electric
charge is quantized - that is, there is a smallest unit below which you can
no longer subdivide a system of electric charge. Charge only comes in
discrete amounts.

And what is e? The Standard International (SI) unit of electric charge is


the Coulomb, named after Charles-Augustin de Coulomb and denoted by a
capital letter C. It is convention to define:

1C = 6:25 Â 1018 elementary charges

Making the elementary charge:

1e = 1:60 Â 10À19 C

Exploring Charge

See the supplementary slides for Lecture 002 for movies and images that
illustrate electric charge:

The charged balloon demonstration and simulation


The charged plastic comb water-deflection demo
The beam tree as an example of charge and aesthetics
Arc flash injury simulation using a dummy
Fluffy carpet and the danger of touching grounded metal objects

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General Physics - E&M (PHY 1308) - Lecture Notes file:///home/sekula/Dropbox/Documents/Notebook...

Electric Force

As some of these demonstrations indicate, electric charge is able to exert a


force. We tend not to notice this force most of the time because the
electrons and protons in our bodies, and in the work around us, are largely
paired up and thus electrically neutral (zero electric charge) on a human
scale.

As the balloon demonstration and the funny video of the electric shock
from the carpet illustrate, electric charge and force go hand-in-hand. Many
observations and measurements of the relationship between:

The magnitude of the charges involved


the distance between the charges (it's direction AND magnitude)
the sign of the charges
the force exerted between charges

have been carefully studied. The result is mathematical statement that has
been upheld by thousands upon thousands of repeated experiments carried
out over hundreds of years - a LAW. This law is known as "Coulomb's Law":

k Á q1 Á q2
F~12 = r^
r2

where F~12 is the force VECTOR (magnitude and direction) that charge 1
exerts on charge 2. k is a constant, determined from repeated
experimentation, whose value is:

k = 9:0 Â 109 N Á m2 =C2

Let's draw a picture of this and illustrate the pieces of this formula. It
combines two key areas of mathematics: standard algebra and vector
algebra. The picture will help us to parse the meaning of this formula,
considering two cases: a pair of like-signed charged, and a pair of opposite-
signed charges.

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