APPLIED PHYSICS

Electric Charge
Coulomb’s Law

Engr. Farwa Batool

Electric Charge
• Electric charge is the basic physical property of matter that
causes it to experience a force when kept in an electric or
magnetic field.
• Everyone has experienced some of the phenomena of static
electricity.
• When you comb dry, clean hair, it is attracted to the comb.
• For a shot time afterward comb will attract little pieces of paper.
• The ancient Greeks noticed that if a piece of Amber is rubbed
with cat fur, it would attract pieces of dry leaves.
• These phenomena have been known for thousands of years.
• These electrical phenomena fascinated many early
investigators and a useful device Electroscope was invented.
Electric Charge
• An electroscope is simply two very thin gold leaves
attached together at the end of a metal rod, usually with a
metal knob at the other end.
• If a glass rod is rubbed with a piece of silk and brought
close to the metal knob, it is seen that the gold leaves
separate into a wide angle as if they are trying to get away
from each other.
• Indeed they are “repelling” one another.
• If the rod is pulled back from knob, the leaves collapse
again into the downward position.
• This suggests that something has flowed from rod to
leaves and we know its an “electric charge”.
Electric Charge
• Electroscope:
 Electric Charge
• Two demonstrations are studied to understand electric
charge.
• After rubbing a glass rod with a silk cloth, we hang the rod by
means of a thread tied around its center (as shown in fig. 1).
• Then we rub a second glass rod with the silk cloth and bring
it near the hanging rod.
• The hanging rod moves away.
• We can see a force repelling it
from the second rod.

Fig. 1
 Electric Charge
• In the second demonstration we replace the second rod with a
plastic rod that has been rubbed with fur.
• This time, the hanging rod moves toward the nearby rod as
shown in Fig. 2.
• We can see a force attracting it
towards the second rod.
• In the first demonstration, force
on hanging rod was repulsive,
and in the second, attractive.
• The forces in these types of
demonstrations are due to the
electric charge. Fig. 2
 Electric Charge
• Types of electric charge:
• There are two types of electric charge, named by the
American scientist Benjamin Franklin as positive charge and
negative charge.
• Particles with the same sign of electrical charge repel each
other, and particles with opposite signs attract each other.
• In most everyday objects, i.e. a mug, there are about equal
numbers of negatively charged particles and positively
charged particles, and so the net charge is zero.
• The charge is said to be balanced, and the object is said to
be electrically neutral (or just neutral for short).
 Electric Charge
• Consider again we rub the glass rod with a silk cloth, a small
amount of negative charge moves from the rod to the silk.
• Leaving the rod with a small amount of excess positive
charge.
• When we rub the second rod with the silk cloth, it too
becomes positively charged.
• So when we bring it near the first rod,
the two rods repel each other.

Fig. 3
 Electric Charge
• When we rub the plastic rod with fur, it gains excess negative
charge from the fur.
• When we bring the plastic rod (with negative charge) near the
hanging glass rod (with positive charge), the rods are attracted
to each other.

Fig. 4
Electric Charge is Conserved
• Electric charge is always conserved in an isolated system.
• That is, when one object is rubbed against another,
charge is not created in the process.
• The electrified state is due to a transfer of charge from
one object to the other.
• One object gains some amount of negative charge while
the other gains an equal amount of positive charge.
 Conductors and Insulators
• Conductors are materials through which charge can move
rather freely, for example metals (copper in common lamp
wire), the human body, and tap water.
• Nonconductors also called insulators are materials through
which charge cannot move freely, for example rubber (the
insulation on common lamp wire), plastic, glass, and
chemically pure water.
• Semiconductors are materials that are intermediate
between conductors and insulators; for example silicon and
germanium in computer chips.
• Superconductors are materials that are perfect conductors,
allowing charge to move without any hindrance for example
aluminium, niobium, magnesium diboride.
 Coulomb’s Law
• This equation works for only charged particles.
• If two charged particles are brought near each other, they
each exert an electrostatic force on the other.
• Direction of the force vectors depends on signs of charges.
• If the particles have same sign of charge, they repel each
other.
• That means that force vector
on each is directly away from
other particle. (fig 5 (a),(b))
• If particles are released, they
accelerate away from each
other. Fig.5
 Coulomb’s Law
• If the particles have opposite signs of charge, they attract
each other.
• That means that the force vector on each is directly toward
the other particle (Fig. 5 (c)).
• If we release the particles, they accelerate toward each other.

Fig.5
 Coulomb’s Law
• The equation for the electrostatic forces acting on the particles
is called Coulomb’s law after Charles-Augustin de Coulomb,
whose experiments in 1785 led him to it.
• Consider Fig. 6
• Particle 1 has charge q1 and particle 2 has charge q2.

Fig. 6
Coulomb’s Law
• According to Coulomb’s experiment electrostatic force is
directly proportional to product of magnitude of two
charges and inversely proportional to square of distance
between two charged particles.
• Mathematically:
Eq. 1

• where r is the separation between the particles and k is a

positive constant called the electrostatic constant or the
Coulomb constant.
 Coulomb’s Law
• If q1 and q2 have the same sign, then the product q1q2 gives
us a positive result.
• Equation 1 tells us that the force on particle 1 is in the
direction of r.
• That checks, because particle 1 is being repelled from particle
2.
• If q1 and q2 have opposite signs, the product q1q2 gives us a
negative result.
• So, now Eq.1 tells us that the force on particle 1 is in the
direction opposite to r.
• That checks because particle 1 is being attracted toward
particle 2.
 Coulomb’s Law
• The SI unit of charge is the coulomb.
• The coulomb unit is derived from the SI unit ampere for
electric current i.
• Current i is the rate dq/dt at which charge moves past a point
or through a region OR the rate of change of
electric charge with respect to time is called current.

• Replacing the symbols with their units:

 Coulomb’s Law
• The electrostatic constant k in Coulomb’s law is often written
as:

• Then the magnitude of the electrostatic force in Coulomb’s

law becomes:

• where:

• permittivity constant:
 Coulomb’s Law
• If you want to know the net force acting on a chosen charged
particle that is surrounded by other charged particles, first
clearly identify that chosen particle and then find the force on
it due to each of the other particles.
• The electrostatic force obeys the principle of superposition.
• Suppose we have n charged particles near a chosen particle
called particle 1; then the net force on particle 1 is given by
the vector sum: