Coulomb's Law describes the force between two electric charges. According to the law, the force experienced by two electric charges is directly proportional to...
Coulomb's Law describes the force between two electric charges. According to the law, the force experienced by two electric charges is directly proportional to the product of the charges' magnitudes and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.
The formula for Coulomb's Law is:
where:
F is the force in Newtons
k is a constant equal to 9 x 10^9 N m^2/C^2
q_1 and q_2 are the magnitudes of the charges in coulombs
r is the distance between the charges in meters
Coulomb's Law can be used to predict the force between two electric charges, regardless of their physical orientation. If the charges have the same sign (both positive or both negative), they repel each other, while if they have opposite signs (one positive and one negative), they attract each other.
For example, if two point charges with equal magnitude q are separated by a distance r, the force experienced by the charges will be:
The constant k can be calculated using the value of the charge of an electron, e, which is approximately 1.6 x 10^-19 C.
Coulomb's Law has numerous applications in the field of electricity and magnetism. It is used to design capacitors, calculate the force between charged objects, and determine the electric potential due to a point charge