Electric Charge

The ancient Greeks discovered as early as 600 B.C. that when they
rubbed amber with wool, the amber could attract other objects. Today
we say that the amber has acquired a net electric charge, or has
become charged. The word electric is derived from the Greek
word elektron, meaning “amber.” When you scuff your shoes across a
nylon carpet, you become electrically charged, and you can charge a
comb by passing it through dry hair.
Plastic rods and fur (real or fake) are particularly good for demonstrating
electric-charge interactions. In Figure 4.1a, we charge two plastic rods
by rubbing them on a piece of fur. We find that the rods repel each other.
When we rub glass rods with silk (Figure 4.1b), the glass rods also
become charged and repel each other. But a charged plastic rod attracts
a charged glass rod (Figure 4.1c, top). Furthermore, the plastic rod and
the fur attract each other, and the glass rod and the silk attract each
other (Figure 4.1c, bottom)
FIGURE 4.1  EXPERIMENTS ILLUSTRATING THE NATURE OF ELECTRIC
CHARGE

Properties of Electric Charge

 Like and unlike charges

Two positive charges or two negative charges repel each other; a

positive and a negative charge attract each other.
  Charge is quantized

This means that electric charge comes in discrete amounts, and there is
a smallest possible amount of charge that an object can have.

In the SI system, this smallest amount is 

C=Coulombs

 The magnitude of the charge is independent of the type.

the smallest possible positive charge (to four significant figures) is
+1.602 x 10-9 C and the smallest possible negative charge is -1.602 x 10 -
9
 C; these values are exactly equal. This is simply how the laws of
physics in our universe turned out.

 Charge is conserved

Charge can neither be created nor destroyed; it can only be transferred

from place to place, from one object to another. It is important that you
understand that the charges on the objects by no means disappear,
however. The net charge of the universe is constant.

 Charge is conserved in closed systems

In principle, if a negative charge disappeared from your lab bench and

reappeared on the Moon, conservation of charge would still hold.
However, this never happens. If the total charge you have in your local
system on your lab bench is changing, there will be a measurable flow of
charge into or out of the system. Again, charges can and do move
around, and their effects can and do cancel, but the net charge in your
local environment (if closed) is conserved. The last two items are both
referred to as the law of conservation of charge.

The Source of Charges: The Structure of the Atom

The structure of ordinary matter can be described in terms of three

particles: the negatively charged electron, the positively charged proton,
and the uncharged neutron. The protons and neutrons in an atom make
up a small, very dense core called the nucleus, with a diameter on the
order of 10-15 m. (Figure 4.3). Surrounding the nucleus are the electrons,
which orbit the nucleus out to distances on the order of 10 -10 m. If an
atom were a few miles across, its nucleus would be the size of a tennis
ball.

FIGURE 4.3 SCHEMATIC DEPICTION  OF THE STRUCTURE AND COMPONENTS

OF AN ATOM.

The masses of the individual particles, to the precision that they are
currently known, are as follows:
Note: The numbers in parentheses are the uncertainties in the last two
digits.
The number of protons or electrons in neutral atoms of any element is
called the atomic number of the element.

FIGURE 4.4 THE NEUTRAL LITHIUM (LI) ATOM AND POSITIVE AND
NEGATIVE LITHIUM IONS.

An ion is an atom that has lost or gained one or more electrons. If one or
more electrons are removed, the remaining positively charged structure
is called a positive ion (Figure 4.4b). A negative ion is an atom that
has gained one or more electrons (Figure 4.4c). This gaining or losing of
electrons is called ionization.
Insulators and Conductors

FIGURE 4.5 CHARGING BY CONDUCTION. A COPPER WIRE IS A GOOD

CONDUCTOR. (A) THE WIRE CONDUCTS CHARGE BETWEEN THE PLASTIC
ROD AND THE METAL BALL, GIVING THE BALL A NEGATIVE CHARGE. THE
CHARGED BALL IS THEN (B) REPELLED BY A LIKE CHARGE AND (C)
ATTRACTED BY AN UNLIKE CHARGE.

Some materials permit electric charge to move from one region of the
material to another; others do not. For example, Figure 4.5 shows a
copper wire supported by a nylon thread. Suppose you touch one end of
the wire to a charged plastic rod and touch the other end to a metal ball
that is initially uncharged. When you remove the copper wire and bring
another charged object near the ball, the ball is attracted or repelled,
showing that it has become electrically charged. Electric charge has
been transferred through the copper wire between the ball and the
surface of the plastic rod.
The wire is called a conductor of electricity. If you repeat the
experiment, but this time using a rubber band or nylon thread in place of
the wire, you find that no charge is transferred to the ball. These
materials are called insulators. Conductors permit charge to move
through them; insulators do not.

Insulator 

Charges cannot move about freely on it.

Examples: amber, glass, wood, rubber.

Conductor

Charges can move freely on it.

Examples: different metals and metal wires.
Semiconductor

Materials have properties of electric conduction between insulator and

conductor.
And semiconductors have wide application in electronics!

Coulomb's Law
Charles Augustin de Coulomb (1736–1806) studied the forces between
charged particles in detail in 1784 using a torsion balance. Figure 4.5a
FIGURE 4.5 9 SCHEMATIC DEPICTION OF THE APPARATUS COULOMB USED
TO DETERMINE THE FORCES BETWEEN CHARGED OBJECTS THAT CAN BE
TREATED AS POINT CHARGES.
Coulomb’s law

The magnitude F of the force that each of two point charges q 1 and q2 a
distance r apart exerts on the other (Figure 4.6b) is directly proportional
to the product of the charges and inversely proportional to the square of
the distance between them. The relationship is expressed symbolically
as  

Units: 

q1 and  q2 are in Coulombs (C) ; 

F in Newtons (N)
Notes: 

 k is a fundamental constant of nature:

 F represents only the magnitude of the force; the

direction is determined using the fact that like charges
repel and unlike charges attract.
  r is the distance between the two charges
 We use absolute value signs around the product
q1q2 because one of the charges may be negative, but
the magnitude of the force is always positive. The
direction of the force vector depends on the sign of the
charges. If the charges are the same, the force points
away from the other charge. If the charges have different
signs, the force points toward the other charge.
Coulomb’s law should be used only for point charges in vacuum and it  is
called the permittivity of free space or permittivity of vacuum.
In SI units, the constant k is often written as,  

where 

These units are required to give the force in Coulomb’s law the correct
units of newtons. Note that in Coulomb’s law, the
permittivity of vacuum is only part of the proportionality constant. For
convenience, we often define a Coulomb’s constant:

Sample  Problem

The Force on the Electron in Hydrogen

A hydrogen atom consists of a single proton and a single electron. The
proton has a charge of +e and the electron has -e . In the “ground state”
of the atom, the electron orbits the proton at most probable distance of
5.29 × 10-11 m (Figure below). Calculate the electric force on the electron
due to the proton.

Solution: 

Superposition
The electric force, like all forces, is a vector. Hence, a charge
experiences forces due to two or more charges is the vector sum of all
the forces.
For examples, in Fig. 4-6, the total force on charge 1 is the vector sum of
the forces due to charges 2, 3 ,4
Vector sum/ Net force:

FIGURE 4-6 SUPERPOSITION FORCES.

Sample  Problem

The Net Force from Two Source Charges

Three different, small charged objects are placed as shown in Figure

below. The charges q1 and q3 are fixed in place; q2 is free to move. Given
q1 = 2e , q2 = -3e , and q3 = -5e , and that d = 2.0 × 10 -7 m , what is the
net force on the middle charge q2?
 Solution:

Apply Pythagorean theorem to its x-and y-components.

where:

and
angle of 

that is, 58° above the -x-axis, as shown in the diagram.