10 2 / HM PH 1 02 /HSST 102

HIPH

ECT RICIT Y AND M AGNETISM

EL

F CHINGORIWO

D A P P LI E D P HY S ICS DEPARTMENT
SPACE SCIENCE A N

ROOM 103 NEW WING

[email protected]
.ac.zw
[email protected]
Charges and Matter
Electric charge and the structure of matter

The particles of the atom are the

negative electron, the positive proton,
and the uncharged neutron.
•Protons and neutrons make up the tiny
dense nucleus which is surrounded by
electrons
•The electric attraction between protons
and electrons holds the atom together.

• comes in two kinds: ‘+’and ‘-’

•Electrostatic Force
–attractive (for ‘+-’) or repulsive (‘--’, `++’)

• Charge is conserved
 Electric Charge

The proton and electron have the same magnitude charge.

•The magnitude of charge of the electron or proton is a natural unit of charge. All observable charge is
quantized in this unit.

•The universal principle of charge conservation states that the algebraic sum of all the electric charges in
any closed system is constant

: the total charge in any system is THE ALGEBRAIC SUM OF THE INDIVIDUAL CHARGES IN THE
SYSTEM
 Quantities of Charge

All electrons carry the same charge. All protons carry the same charge. The proton's charge has exactly the same
MAGNITUDE as, but the opposite sign of, the electron's charge.

. The magnitude of the electron or proton charge is the elementary charge, . Electrons have charge , and protons
have charge . Electric charge is quantized - that is it only comes in discrete amounts.

The Standard International (SI) unit of electric charge is the Coulomb, named after Charles-Augustin de Coulomb
and denoted by a capital letter C.

It is convention to define: 1C elementary charges

making 1e
 Charge Is Quantized

An important experiment in which the charge of small oil droplets was determined was carried out by Millikan
Millikan discovered that the charge on the oil droplets was always a multiple of the charge of the electron (e, the fundamental
charge).
he observed droplets with a charge equal to +/- e, +/- 2 e, +/- 3 e, etc., but never droplets with a charge equal to +/-1.45 e, +/-
2.28 e, etc.

Where e = 1.602 is elementary charge

The experiments strongly suggested that charge is quantized.

Another important property of charge is that charge a conserved quantity. No reaction has ever been found that
creates or destroys charge. For example, the annihilation of an electron and an anti electron (positron) produces
two photons:
 Charge Is Conserved

If you rub a glass rod with silk, a positive charge appears on the rod. Measurement shows that a negative charge
of equal magnitude appears on the silk.

This suggests that rubbing does not create charge but only transfers it from one body to another, upsetting the
electrical neutrality of each body during the process.

This hypothesis of conservation of charge,

 Conductors and Insulators
We can classify materials generally according to the ability of charge to move through them.

Conductors are materials through which charge can move rather freely; examples include metals (such as
copper in common lamp wire), the human body, and tap water.

Nonconductors—also called insulators—are materials

through which charge cannot move freely; examples include rubber , plastic, glass, and chemically pure water.

Semiconductors are materials that are intermediate between conductors and

insulators; examples include silicon and germanium in computer chips.

Superconductors are materials that are perfect conductors, allowing charge to move without any hindrance. In
these chapters we discuss only conductors and insulators
The properties of conductors and insulators are due to the structure and electrical nature of atoms.

Atoms consist of positively charged protons, negatively charged electrons, and electrically neutral neutrons.
The protons and neutrons are packed tightly together in a central nucleus

The charge of a single electron and that of a single proton have the same magnitude but are opposite in
sign.

A negatively charged plastic rod will attract either end of an isolated neutral copper rod. What happens is
that many of the conduction electrons in the closer end of the copper rod are repelled by the negative
charge on the plastic rod
 Charging by induction

the negative rod is able to charge the metal ball without losing any of its own charge. This process is called charging by induction.
 Electric Force
Particles with the same sign of electrical charge repel each other, and particles with opposite signs attract each other.
The magnitude of the charges involved depends on :
 the distance between the charges (it's direction AND magnitude)
 the sign of the charges
 the force exerted between charges

The term electrostatic is used to emphasize that, relative to each other, the charges are either stationary
or moving only very slowly. If the charges are moving with a uniform velocity, they will experience both the electrostatic
force and a magnetic force. The combined electrostatic and magnetic force is called the electromagnetic force.

Experiments have shown that the electric force between two objects is proportional to the inverse square of the distance
between the two objects. The electric force between two electrons is the same as the electric force between two protons
when they are placed as the same distance. This implies that the electric force does not depend on the mass of the
particle. Instead, it depends on a new quantity: the electric charge. The unit of
electric charge q is the Coulomb (C).
 Coulomb’s Law

If two charged particles are brought near each other, they each exert an electrostatic force on the other. The
direction of the force vectors depends on the signs of the charges. If the particles have the same sign of
charge, they repel each other. That means that the force vector on each is directly away from the other
particle

This equation works for only charged

particles

where r is the separation between the particles and k is a positive constant called
the electrostatic constant or the Coulomb constant.
N.B : double-check any results using what you know about charges: like charges REPEL and unlike
charges ATTRACT
 Electrostatic force
Multiple Forces.
As with all forces in this book, 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

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.
 Draw those force vectors in a free-body diagram of the chosen particle, with the tails anchored on the
particle.
 Then add all those forces as vectors not as scalars.
 The result is the net force (or resultant force) acting on the particle.

Strength of Electrostatic Force (qualitatively):

–If distance gets larger, force gets weaker
–If charge gets bigger, force gets stronger
 Comparison with gravity

In gravitation, we talk about the acceleration due to gravity. That can be written:

The gravitational acceleration can then be thought of as the force per unit mass that an object in Earth's
gravitational field would experience. becomes the gravitational field, and it is defined as the force per unit
mass at any point in space around the mass.
Charges q1 = C and q2 C and the particle separation is R = 0.02m. What is the magnitude of the
electrostatatic force on particle 1 from particle 2
Questions