Electric Charge and Coulomb’s Law
Copyright © Michael Richmond.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Electric Charge and Coulomb’s Law
- Electric charge is a fundamental property of matter.
Electrons carry a charge of negative one “electron unit”, and
protons a charge of positive one “electron unit”. - Electric charge is conserved in a closed system.
- The SI unit for electric charge is the Coulomb:
about 6.25 x 10^18 electrons add up to 1 Coulomb
- The Coulomb is a very LARGE amount of charge — ordinary
situations contain a tiny fraction of a Coulomb. - If one Coulomb per second moves past a fixed point in a wire,
that wire is carrying a current of one Ampere. - Conductors allow charge to move freely through them.
Metals are good conductors. - Insulators keep charged particles nearly fixed in place.
Glass, rubber and plastic are good insulators. - Coulomb’s Law describes the force between two charged point-like
particles:q1 * q2 F = k * ---------- r^2
where
k = Coulomb's constant = 8.99 x 10^9 (N*m^2/C^2) q1 = charge on first particle (Coulombs) q2 = charge on second particle (Coulombs) r = distance between particles (meters)
If the result is positive, the force is repulsive.
If the result is negative, the force is attractive. - The electric forces from several particles add together as vectors.
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Copyright © Michael Richmond.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.