UNIVERSITY PHYSICS
Chapter 5 ELECTRIC CHARGES AND FIELDS
SQU/2102-2108 slides. Adapted by N.K. Original by openstax
Chapter 5: Outline
5.1 Electric Charge
5.2 Conductors, Insulators, and Charging by Induction
5.3 Coulomb's Law
5.4 Electric Field
5.5 Calculating Electric Fields of Charge Distributions
5.6 Electric Field Lines
5.7 Electric Dipoles
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5.1 Electric Charge
Learning Objectives:
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Describe the concept of electric charge
• Explain qualitatively the force electric charge creates
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Static electricity:
After being used to comb hair, this comb attracts small strips of paper from a distance,
without physical contact.
Investigation of this behavior helped lead to the concept of the electric force
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Static electricity
Figure 5.5 When materials are rubbed together, charges can be separated, particularly if one material has a greater
affinity for electrons than another. (a) Both the amber and cloth are originally neutral, with equal positive and
negative charges. Only a tiny fraction of the charges are involved, and only a few of them are shown here. (b) When
rubbed together, some negative charge is transferred to the amber, leaving the cloth with a net positive charge. (c)
When separated, the amber and cloth now have net charges, but the absolute value of the net positive and negative
charges will be equal SQU/2102-2108 slides. Adapted by NK. Original by openstax 5
Electric charge
• The SI unit of electric charge is the coulomb (C), after the French physicist
Charles-Augustin de Coulomb (1736–1806).
Electric force:
• The force acts without physical contact between the two objects.
• The force can be either attractive or repulsive: If two interacting objects
carry the same sign of charge, the force is repulsive; if the charges are of
opposite sign, the force is attractive. These interactions are referred to as
electrostatic repulsion and electrostatic attraction, respectively.
• Not all objects are affected by this force.
• The magnitude of the force decreases (rapidly) with increasing separation
distance between the objects.
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Properties of Electric Charge
• Charge is quantized.
• The smallest amount is
• The magnitude of the charge is independent of the type
• Charge is conserved. Charge can neither be created nor destroyed; it
can only be transferred from place to place, from one object to
another.
• Charge is conserved in closed systems
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The Source of charges: the structure of the
atom
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5.2 Conductors, Insulators, and Charging by
Induction
Learning Objectives:
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Explain what a conductor is
• Explain what an insulator is
• List the differences and similarities between conductors and
insulators
• Describe the process of charging by induction
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Conductors
• Let’s consider an atom of the most commonly used conductor, copper.
• There is an outermost electron that is only loosely bound to the atom’s
nucleus.
• it then moves to a neighboring atom. In a large mass of copper atoms
(such as a copper wire or a sheet of copper), these vast numbers of
outermost electrons (one per atom) wander from atom to atom, and are
the electrons that do the moving when electricity flows.
• These “free,” electrons are called conduction electrons, and copper is
therefore an excellent conductor (of electric charge).
• All conducting elements have a similar arrangement of their electrons, with
one or two conduction electrons. This includes most metals.
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Insulators
• Insulators, are made from materials that lack conduction electrons;
charge flows only with great difficulty, if at all. Even if excess charge is
added to an insulating material, it cannot move, remaining
indefinitely in place.
• Charge cannot flow along or through an insulator, so its electric forces
remain for long periods of time.
• As it happens, amber, fur, and most semi-precious gems are
insulators, as are materials like wood, glass, and plastic.
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Charging by Induction
Let’s examine in more detail what happens in a conductor when an
electrically charged object is brought close to it. When a charged
insulator (such as a positively charged glass rod) is brought close to
the conductor, the (total) charge on the insulator exerts an electric
force on the conduction electrons. Since the rod is positively charged,
the conduction electrons (which themselves are negatively charged)
are attracted, flowing toward the insulator to the near side of the
conductor (Figure 5.10)
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Electric dipole
• The result is the formation of what is called an electric dipole, from a
Latin phrase meaning “two ends.” The presence of electric charges
on the insulator—and the electric forces they apply to the
conduction electrons—creates, or “induces,” the dipole in the
conductor.
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Polarization of atoms and molecules
• Neutral objects can be attracted to any charged object. The pieces
of straw attracted to polished amber are neutral, for example. If you
run a plastic comb through your hair, the charged comb can pick up
neutral pieces of paper. Figure 5.11 shows how the polarization of
atoms and molecules in neutral objects results in their attraction to a
charged object.
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• When a charged rod is brought near a neutral substance, an insulator
in this case, the distribution of charge in atoms and molecules is
shifted slightly.
• Opposite charge is attracted nearer the external charged rod, while
like charge is repelled. Since the electrostatic force decreases with
distance, the repulsion of like charges is weaker than the attraction of
unlike charges, and so there is a net attraction. Thus, a positively
charged glass rod attracts neutral pieces of paper, as will a negatively
charged rubber rod.
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Polar molecules
• Some molecules, like water, are polar molecules.
• Polar molecules have a natural or inherent separation of charge,
although they are neutral overall.
• Polar molecules are particularly affected by other charged objects and
show greater polarization effects than molecules with naturally
uniform charge distributions.
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Charging by induction
• When the two ends of a dipole can be separated, this method of
charging by induction may be used to create charged objects without
transferring charge.
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Charging by induction
(a) Two uncharged or neutral metal spheres are in contact with each
other but insulated from the rest of the world.
(b) A positively charged glass rod is, attracting negative charge and
leaving the other sphere positively charged.
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Charging by induction
(c) The spheres are separated before the rod is removed, thus
separating negative and positive charges.
(d) The spheres retain net charges after the inducing rod is removed—
without ever having been touched by a charged object.
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Another method of charging by induction
(a) A positively charged rod is brought near a neutral metal sphere, polarizing it.
(b) The sphere is grounded, allowing electrons to be attracted from Earth’s ample supply.
(c) The ground connection is broken.
(d) The positive rod is removed, leaving the sphere with an induced negative charge.
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5.3 Coulomb's Law
Learning Objectives:
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Describe the electric force, both qualitatively and quantitatively
• Calculate the force that charges exert on each other
• Determine the direction of the electric force for different source
charges
• Correctly describe and apply the superposition principle for multiple
source charges
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Coulomb’s Law
• The magnitude of the electric force (or Coulomb force) between two
electrically charged particles is equal to
• The unit vector r has a magnitude of 1 and r points along the axis as
the charges.
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Permittivity of free space or the permittivity
of vacuum
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Permittivity of free space or the permittivity
of vacuum
Coulomb’s constant:
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Multiple Source Charges
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PI Question
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5.4 Electric Field
Learning Objectives:
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Explain the purpose of the electric field concept
• Describe the properties of the electric field
• Calculate the field of a collection of source charges of either sign
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Defining a Field
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Unit of the electric field : N/C
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5.5 Calculating Electric Fields of Charge
Distribution
Learning Objectives:
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Explain what a continuous source charge distribution is and how it is
related to the concept of quantization of charge
• Describe line charges, surface charges, and volume charges
• Calculate the field of a continuous source charge distribution of
either sign
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• The charge distributions we have seen so far have been discrete:
made up of individual point particles. This is in contrast with a
continuous charge distribution, which has at least one nonzero
dimension.
• We simply divide the charge into infinitesimal pieces and treat each
piece as a point charge
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Charge density
• a charge density for a charge distribution along a line, across a
surface, or within a volume, as shown in Figure 5.22.
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Charge density
Note carefully the meaning of r in these equations: It is the distance from the charge element
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Charge density
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The field of an infinite plane, which is a flat sheet whose area is much, much greater than its thickness, and
also much, much greater than the distance at which the field is to be calculated:
Note that this field is constant.
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5.6 Electric Field Lines
Learning Objectives:
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Explain the purpose of an electric field diagram
• Describe the relationship between a vector diagram and a field line
diagram
• Explain the rules for creating a field diagram and why these rules
make physical sense
• Sketch the field of an arbitrary source charge
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Figure 5.29 (a) The electric field line diagram of a positive point charge. (b) The field line diagram of a dipole.
In both diagrams, the magnitude of the field is indicated by the field line density. The field vectors (not shown
here) are everywhere tangent to the field lines.
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5.7 Electric Dipole
Learning Objectives:
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Describe a permanent dipole
• Describe an induced dipole
• Define and calculate an electric dipole moment
• Explain the physical meaning of the dipole moment
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Permanent dipole
Let’s now consider what happens to a dipole when it is placed in an
external field . We assume that the dipole is a permanent dipole; it
exists without the field, and does not break apart in the external field
E.
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Rotation of a Dipole due to an Electric Field
Suppose we have the situation depicted in Figure 5.32, where we denote the distance between the
charges as the vector pointing from the negative charge to the positive charge. The forces on the two
charges are equal and opposite, so there is no net force on the dipole. However, there is a torque
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Torque on dipole in external E-field
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