640 Solutions to the problems Figur Spbesial hel 1252, Projections nto line Rings ‘o the close spacing of the charges. The field due to the adjacent point charge will increase by dg/(L/N), so if we want this o equal QN/nL2, ‘we need dg = Q/nN. his increase is 1/n times the original charge Q/. Tis modification will of course affect the fields at other locations, 0 we will aged to make iterative corrections. But the general size ofthe correction to the nth charge willbe (less than or equal fo) of order Qn Since the sum of the reciprocals ofthe integers grows logarithmically, we see that the sum ofthe changes tall charges will be of onder Q(laN)/N. Inthe No limit, his goes to 2010, which means that we need to add fon essentially zero charge, compared with the original charge Q on the stick. In other words, the final charge density is essentially uniform. ‘Very close tothe end of the stick, where mis of order I, the correc: sion dg = QjnN is of the same rough size as the original point-charge value Q/WV. Bu this region near the end takes up a negligible fraction of the whole length. To see why, let N equal one billion, and consider the tend region where the resulting charges difer from Q/N by st most, say, (04 percent. Since dg = Q/nl, this region extends (roughly) out to the point charge with = 1000. The region therefore has a length that is oughly) one millionth of the total length. Inthe N’—> 20 limit (however physical chat Hmit may be), the dg corrections vanish at any fnite dis {ance away from the end, which means thatthe stick’s density is exacly uniform. The point is thatthe relative size of the dg correction depends ‘om a given charge’s index n, as opposed to is distance fom the end. And ‘compared with an N that heads to infinity, any given number n is ifinites- ily small His also possible to demonstrate the general result of this problem by keeping the sizes ofthe point charges fixed and imagining moving them slighty to balance the fields. The result is that, fr large N, the charges bately need to move in order to balance out the fields ‘The moral ofthis problem is that duc tothe 1/r? nature of the field {rom a point charge (although you can show that any power larger than 1 inthe denominacor would be sufficient, and due tothe very small separa ton betvzen the charges, it takes only very minor changes inthe nearby charge values to create large changes in the local field, thereby canceling the unbalanced field due to & macroscopic amount of charge & macro scopie distance away. You are encouraged to see how the above reasoning is modified when applied to the 2D ease (witha plane built up from lines of charge, whose felds fll of like 1/7) and also the 3D case (witha vol- ume built up from planes of charge, whose fields don't fal ff at all). See ‘Andres (1997) andl Grifths and Li (1996) for Further discussion ofthis problem. REMARK: AS mentioned inthe statement ofthe problem, the uniform density ofthe tick can also be demonstrated (in a miuch quicker manner) by using the technique from Problem 3.4 and Good (1997). If we have aspherical shell with uniform surface charge density, and if we projet the two rings in Fig. 12.52 onto the horizontal axis (the stick), then you cean check that the two resulting line segments produce canceling fields at point P. You can also check that tis projection produces a uniform charge Sistribution on the stick. (In short, fora given horizontal width dx of a