Electrostatics Technology in Physics || Electric Charges Basics by @katiewest || 17-8-22
Hello to you! Hope you’re having a nice day. I’m here today for another breakdown of a topic in Physics. I will be giving the introductory aspect of this topic “Electrostatics” just to refresh our memory before all the calculations come up. So sit back and enjoy this lovely writeup.
ELECTROSTATICS/Mechanics
As we already know, all substances are made up of atoms. Note that; Atoms are the smallest indivisible particles contained in a substance.
Having known that, an atom consists of a proton, neutron and electron.
Protons have positive charge and are found within the nucleus.
Neutrons are neutrally charged(no charge) and are also within the nucleus of the atom
Electrons are negatively charged and are located outside the nucleus of the atom.
It is also important to note that the number of protons is equal to the number of the electrons in that atom when the body/substance has no charge.
You really can’t talk about Electrostatics without Coulomb’s Law, so let me state it. “It states that the force of attraction between two charges is proportional to the product of the two charges and inversely proportional to the square of the distance separating them”
[Source(https://www.siyavula.com/read/science/grade-11/electrostatics/09-electrostatics-02)
From the law, you can easily derive the formula.
F=(kq1q2)/r^2
Where F is force
K is proportionality sign
q1 and q2 are the charges
r is the distance between the charges
Note k= 9*10^9Nm2C-2 (constant)
Electric Field
This is a region of space where the force due to a charge can be felt or experienced. Simply put, the area around a charge where the force is felt is the electric field of that charge.
Note that: A capacitor is used to store electric charges. While an electroscope(gold leaf electroscope) is used to detect if a body carries an electric charge.
All these are the basics of Electrostatics, I hope you learnt one or two new things today to add to your knowledge bank. More sessions will be coming up soon. Enjoy the rest of your day!