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Lesson 23

The electric eld


A model for action at a distance
From a long view of the history of mankind seen from, say, ten thousand years from now, there can be little doubt that the most signicant event of the 19th century will be judged as Maxwell's discovery of the laws of electrodynamics. The American Civil War will pale into provincial insignicance in comparison with this important scientic event of the same decade. --Richard Feynman

A. CHARGES CREATE FIELDS


If, in a region of space, there is some assembly of charged particles, as shown in the gure below (with two positive and two negative charges), then, if you bring in a small particle with charge q, which we call the test charge, this particle will feel a force due to the presence of all the charges in the assembly. And of course, our test charge is not actually touching any of the other charges in the assembly.

In the early 19th century, Michael Faraday invented the concept of the electric eld to explain this action at a distance. He said that the presence of our assembly of charged particles alters the properties of the space around them in such a way that a charged particle brought into that space (our test charge) would experience a force. Somehow there are lines of force emanating from each charge in the assembly, and these lines of force create a force eld. The electric eld will exert a force on any charged object placed in it. What is a eld? It is simply a description of some property that exists at every point in space. For example, there is a temperature eld in the room you are sitting in: each point in the room is at some specic temperature, and the temperature at each point would be called the temperature

eld. The eld is just a fancy name for temperature as a function of position. If you are sitting outside on Clark eld the air is moving around you, and we can describe the velocity of the wind (speed and direction) at every point around you. That would be the wind eld. Note that the wind eld is a vector eld, since we would use a vector at each point in space to describe the wind (magnitude and direction) at each point. The temperature eld is a scalar eld, since only one number is needed to describe the temperature at each point. The following video has a great presentation, with animations, of the concept of the electric eld. View the video from the beginning to 15:50, paying particular attention to the section from 10:45-15:50. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8999299252618809989 Michael Faraday visualized the eld as lines of force emanating from charged objects. Here are some pictures of the electric eld that really show what Faraday imagined. These pictures are taken by placing ne pieces of thread in light oil and then immersing charged objects in the oil (photos from http://son.nasa.gov/tass/content/electricity.htm )

A single charged sphere.

Two spheres with opposite charge:

Two metal plates with opposite charge:

B. DEFINITION OF THE ELECTRIC FIELD


If we place a test charge q at a point P that is near an assembly of charge, then the force on the test charge is the vector sum of the forces from each of the charges in the assembly (see gure) But the force exerted by each of the charges in the assembly will be proportional to the test charge q. Therefore, if the test charge is doubled, the total force would be doubled, if it were halved, then the force would be halved. Therefore, the force on the test charge divided by q, which we could call the force per unit charge, will be the same of all values of q, and will depend only on the particular conguration of the charge assembly and the location of point P. The quantity is called the electric eld.

Electric field at point P = F E= q'

Force on charge q' at point P q'

The electric eld is the force per unit charge. What are the units of electric eld? For convenience (to avoid unnecessary negative signs), we always use a positive test charge, and the eld is in the direction of the force on a positive test charge. If we were to place a particle with a charge q in an electric eld, then the force on that particle would be F = qE The direction of the force will be in the same direction as the eld if the charge q is positive. The direction of the force will be in the opposite direction as the eld if the charge q is negative. The direction of the electric eld is the direction of force on a positive charge placed in that eld.

Exercises 1. A charge of 3.0 C is placed at the location (0,0). Use the denition of electric eld to determine the magnitude and direction of the electric eld at (1.0cm, 0) and (0, 2.0 cm). 2. A particle with a charge of +2.0 C is held in place on the x-axis at the point x=+1.0 cm, and a second particle with a charge of 4.0C is held in place on the x-axis at the point x= 1.0 cm. a) What is the magnitude and direction of the electric eld at x=0 (on the x-axis)? b) Are there any points on the x axis where the electric eld is zero? If so, where? 3. A small sphere with a charge of 0.35 C and mass of 0.75 g is placed at a point where the electric eld is 500 N/C. What is the acceleration of the sphere, if no other forces are acting on it? 4. A small pith ball with a mass of 0.050 g and charge of 0.20 C is hanging from a string. When you bring a charged pie pan up to the pith ball it is repelled so that the string makes an angle of 4.0 with the vertical. Calculate the magnitude of the electric eld due to the pie pan at the position of the pith ball.

C. VISUALIZING THE ELECTRIC FIELD


We can draw an electric eld by drawing a vector at many points in space to represent the electric eld. The electric eld is a vector because it has both direction and magnitude, which represent the direction of the force and magnitude of the force per unit charge). Below is an example taken from MIT (http://web.mit.edu/jbelcher/www/java/vecnodyncirc/ vecnodyncirc.html ). This gure show two charged particles of opposite sign (but unequal magnitude) and each arrow shows the direction of the electric eld at the position of the tail of the arrow. The magnitude of the eld is represented by the color of the arrow (red is greater magnitude).

Using these arrow, we can also construct electric eld lines. The lines are drawn so that at any point along the line the direction of the electric eld is tangent to the line. Here is an example of three electric eld lines (in green) from the same eld as the previous gure.

Note that we must draw arrows on the electric eld lines so that we know the direction of the eld. Electric eld lines always start on positive charges and end on negative charges, and they can never cross (why not?). Here is an example from http://web.mit.edu/8.02t/www/802TEAL3D/ visualizations/electrostatics/pcharges/pcharges.htm

Here are some exercises for you to practice drawing electric elds (do #1-4): http:// dl.dropbox.com/u/36706831/Pphys11/Practice%20sheets/ps_29_eld_drawings.pdf

Here are some good simulations you should play with (wont run on ipad): http://web.mit.edu/jbelcher/www/java/vecnodyncirc/vecnodyncirc.html http://web.mit.edu/8.02t/www/802TEAL3D/visualizations/electrostatics/pcharges/ pcharges.htm

D. ELECTRIC FIELD DUE TO A POINT CHARGE


Let say there is a point charge Q at some point in space. How do we determine the electric eld near that point charge? We use our denition of electric eld. We can determine the electric eld by calculating the force on a test charge. If we image bringing in a test charge q to a distance r from our point charge Q , then the force on the test charge will be

F=

kQq' r2

If Q is positive, the force will be away from Q , and if Q is negative, the force will be towards Q. So therefore the electric eld around the charge Q (due to Q) will be:

E=

F kQ = q' r 2

Note that if Q is positive, then the electric eld will point radially outward from the point charge, and if it is negative, then the eld will point radially inward. Here are the electric eld diagrams for the eld around positive and negative point charges.

http://buphy.bu.edu/~duffy/PY106/2e.GIF

What if we have an assembly of more than one point charges? What would the electric eld be then? We know that if we place a test charge in the region, the force on it will be the sum of the forces from each of the individual charges in the assembly. It follows, therefore, that the total electric eld will just be the sum of the electric elds from all the individual charges in the assembly: E = E1 + E2 + E3 + ... where E1 is the eld due the rst charge, etc.

Exercises 5. Three particles, each with a charge of 2.0 C are placed on three corners of a square with 1.0 cm sides. Determine the direction and magnitude of the electric eld at the fourth corner of the square. 6. Two particles with charge 2.0 C are placed at (-1cm, -1cm) and (1cm, -1cm) and two particles with a charge of +2.0 C are placed at (-1cm, 1cm) and (1cm, 1cm). Determine the magnitude and direction of the electric eld: a) At the center of the square. b) At the middle of each side of the square. 7. Two parallel horizontal plates are 2.0 cm apart in vacuum. The top plate is positively charged and the bottom plate is negatively charged, so that the electric eld between the plates is uniform and 5.0x105 N/C. An electrically charged oil drop, which from other measurements appears to a have a mass of a 1.0x104 g, is seen to be suspended motionlessly between the plates. a) What is the magnitude and direction of the electric force on that oil drop? b) What is the direction of the electric eld between the plates? c) What is charge q of the oil drop? d) What would the charge q of the drop have to be for it to have an upwards acceleration of 2.00 m/s2? 8. A proton (mass=1.7x10-27 kg; charge = +1.6 x 10-19 C) is accelerated from rest to a speed of 3.0 x 106 m/s in 1.0 x 10-6 sec in a uniform electric eld. a) What is the magnitude of the eld? b) How much work did the eld do on the proton? 9. For the following charge distributions, i) draw electric eld lines; and ii) identify any points (other than innity) where the electric eld is zero: a) -Q at (-a, 0); +Q at (a, 0) b) +Q at (-a, 0); +Q at (a, 0) c) -4Q at (-a, 0); +Q at (a, 0) d) +Q at (-a/2, -a/2); +Q at (a/2, a/2); Q at (-a/2, a/2); Q at (a/2, -a/2) Check you solutions by viewing the electric eld lines at (you will need Java): http://web.mit.edu/8.02t/www/802TEAL3D/visualizations/electrostatics/pcharges/ pcharges.htm (2 charges) http://web.mit.edu/8.02t/www/802TEAL3D/visualizations/electrostatics/zoo/zoo.htm (for more than 2 charges) 10. Play electric eld hockey. Try to score with the fewest number of charges. http:// phet.colorado.edu/en/simulation/electric-hockey


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