Electrostatics involves electric charges namely positive and negative charges, the forces between them which is known as electric force, the field that surrounds them, and their behaviour in materials. Coulomb’s law is the simple relation that governs electrostatic interactions and the field around the charges is described using the concept of the electric field. Coulomb’s law is an inverse square law that gives the force between two charges kept at some distance (say $r$ ) apart from each other.
Like Coulomb’s law, the law of gravitation is also an inverse square law but gravitational interactions are only attractive in nature and electrical interactions are attractive as well as repulsive depending on the nature of interacting charges. Charges of the same kind repel each other and charge different kinds, i.e. one charge positive and other negatives, attract each other.
One more thing electric interactions are much stronger than gravitational interactions and gravitational force is almost negligible in comparison to the forces of electric origin. This is always true when we study the interactions of atomic and subatomic particles. But when we study objects very large in size say a person, a planet, or satellites, the net governing force, in this case, is a gravitational force not electric.
Now coming to the properties of electric charges we know that electric charge is quantized and it also obeys the law of conservation means total charge remains conserved.
Now we will discuss why we study electrostatics and where it finds its applications. Electric interactions are of immense importance in chemistry and biology and have many technological applications. Concepts of electricity proved to be of basic importance for studying atomic physics, nuclear physics, and solid-state physics. It also finds importance in studying advanced-level physics.
In this article, we will learn how to calculate the force between two charges. The force between two charges can be found using Coulomb’s Law in electrostatics. Before going any further, let us learn what is Coulomb’s Law. Coulomb’s Law…
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Electrostatics Quiz This electrostatics test contains questions where four options are provided. Students have to select the correct answer out of the available four choices. Once you have completed this test you can check the result by clicking the “View…
Let us try to understand first what a dipole is? More specifically, what an electric dipole is? Then we will sum up the electric dipole concept with few examples. What do we mean by the terms electric dipole and electric…
In this article we will learn about the comparison between Coulomb’s laws and Biot-Savart’s laws. We will look at both similarities and difference between Coulomb’s Law and Biot-Savart’s law. One is for static charges and another one is for moving…
