Short Quiz — Electrostatics irsee 2 ifthe exponent 2 in the r? of Coulomb’s law were 3 instead, would Gauss’s law still be vali’? QY A student claimed that an appropriate unit for electric field magnitude isi Jc *m’. te this correct? (3) Nineteenth century physicists liked to give everything mechanical attributes, Faraday zad his contemporaries thought of field lines as elastic strings that repelled the action of their elastic tension and mutual repulsion. Try this picture on several examples and decide whether it makes any sense. (These mechanical properties are of course now known to be completely fictitious ) {Ay If the electric potential at a single point is known, can the electric field at that point be determined? If two points are at the same potential, is the electric field necessarily zero everywhere between them? If the electric field is zero throughout a certain region of space, is the potential also zero in this region? If not, what can be said about the potential? \s potential gradient a scalar or vector quantity? The potential (relative to a point at infinity) midway between two charges of equal magnitude ‘and opposite sign is zero. Can you think of a way to bring a test charge from infinity to this midpoint is such a way that no work is done in any part of the displacement? o A positive point charge is placed near a very large conducting plane. A professor of physics asserted that the field caused by this configuration is the same as would be obtained by removing the plane and placing a negative point charge of equal magnitude in the mixror-image position behind the initial position of the plane. Is this correct? g Q' 88 & 8 Two identical capacitors are connected in series. Is the resulting capacitance greater or less th that of each individual capacitor? What if they are connected in parallel? (11) Could one define a capacitance for a single conductor? What would be a reasonable definition? (12) Suppose the two plates of a capacitor have different areas. When the capacitor is charged by ‘connecting it to a battery, do the charges on the two plates have equal magnitude, or may they & be different? { fi (13) Can you think ofa situation in which the two plates of a capacitor do not have equal magnitudes ofcharge? Nat ynible (14) A capacitor is charged by connecting it to a battery, and is then disconnected from the charging. agency. The plates are then pulled apart a little. How does the electric field change? The potential difference? The total energy? (15) The charge plates of a capacitor attract each other. To pull the plates farther apart therefore required work by some external force. What becomes of the energy added by this work? (16) Assolid slab of metal is placed between the plates of a capacitor without touching either plate Does the capacitance increase, decrease, or remain the same?