CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION
ELECTRIC CHARGE
CONDUCTORS AND INSULATORS
CHARGING BY INDUCTION
PROPERTIES OF ELECTRIC CHARGE
CHARGE DISTRIBUTION
ELECTRIC FIELD AND ELECTRIC FIELD
LINES
ELECTRIC DIPOLE
DIPOLE IN AUNIFORM EXTERNAL
ELECTRIC FIELD
GAUSS LAW
BIBLIOGRAPHY

INTRODUCTION
 ELECTROSTATS:- Electrostatics is a branch of physics that studies
electric charges at rest.

S
ince classical physics, it has been known that some materials such as
amber attract lightweight particles after rubbing. The Greek word for
amber, ήλεκτρον, or electron, was the source of the word
'electricity'. Electrostatic phenomena arise from the forces that
electric charges exert on each other. Such forces are described by
Coulomb's law. Even though electrostatically induced forces seem to be
rather weak, some electrostatic forces such as the one between an electron
and a proton, that together make up a hydrogen atom, is about 36 orders
of magnitude stronger than the gravitational force acting between them.
 There are many examples of electrostatic phenomena, from those as
simple as the attraction of the plastic wrap to one's hand after it is
removed from a package to the apparently spontaneous explosion of
grain silos, the damage of electronic components during manufacturing,
and photocopier & laser printer operation. Electrostatics involves the
buildup of charge on the surface of objects due to contact with other
surfaces.
 Although charge exchange happens whenever any two surfaces contact
and separate, the effects of charge exchange are usually only noticed
when at least one of the surfaces has a high resistance to electrical flow.
This is because the charges that transferred are trapped there for a time
long enough for their effects to be observed. These charges then
remain on the object until they either bleed off to ground or are quickly
neutralized by a discharge: e.g., the familiar phenomenon of a static
'shock' is caused by the neutralization of charge built up in the body
from contact with insulated surfaces.
 ELECTRIC CHARGE

Historically the credit of discovery of the fact that amber rubbed with
wool or silk cloth attracts light objects goes to Thales of Miletus,
Greece, around 600 BC. The name electricity is coined from the
Greek word elektron meaning amber. Many such pairs of materials
were known which on rubbing could attract light objects like straw, pith
balls and bits of papers. You can perform the following activity at home
to experience such an effect.
Cut out long thin strips of white paper and lightly iron them. Take
them near a TV screen or computer monitor. You will see that the
strips get attracted to the screen. In fact they remain stuck to the screen
for a while. It was observed that if two glass rods rubbed with wool or
silk cloth are brought close to each other, they repel each other The
two strands of wool or two pieces of silk cloth, with which the rods
were rubbed, also repel each other. However, the glass rod and wool
attracted each other. Similarly, two plastic rods rubbed with cat’s fur
repelled each other but attracted the fur. On the other hand, the plastic
rod attracts the glass rod and repel the silk or wool with which the glass
rod is rubbed. The glass rod repels the fur. If a plastic rod rubbed with
fur is made to touch two small pith balls (now-a-days we can use
polystyrene balls) suspended by silk or nylon thread, then the balls
repel each other and are also repelled by the rod. A similar effect is
found if the pith balls are touched with a glass rod rubbed with silk.
A dramatic observation is that a pith ball touched with glass rod
attracts another pith ball touched with plastic rod .These seemingly
simple facts were established from years of efforts and careful
experiments and their analyses. It was concluded, after many careful
studies by different scientists, that there were only two kinds of an
 entity which is called the electric charge. We say that the bodies like
glass or plastic rods, silk, fur and pith balls are electrified.
They acquire an electric charge on rubbing. The experiments on pith balls
suggested that there are two kinds of electrification and we find that
(i) like charges repel and
(ii) (ii) unlike charges attract each other.
The experiments also demonstrated that the charges are transferred from
the rods to the pith balls on contact. It is said that the pith balls are
electrified or are charged by contact. The property which differentiates
the two kinds of charges is called the polarity of charge.
Physicists believe that charge is a fundamental quantity, and will have its own
unit. However, there is one interesting property of charge that mass, length
and time do not have:
charge is quantized in multiples of a basic charge. This means that the charge
on any particle or object is an integer multiple of a fundamental charge unit
called electron. Since all stable matter is made up of protons, neutrons, and
electrons, the net charge q of a material is (Np − Ne)e where Np is the
number of protons in the material and Ne is the number of electrons. If
there are an equal number of protons and electrons, the material is neutral.
If the material has an excess of electrons (protons), then the material has a
net negative (positive) charge. Thus, q = (Np − Ne)e is quantized in multiples
of e since Np and Ne are integers. This quantization doesn’t only hold for
stable mater, but for all subatomic particles that are directly observed in the
laboratory (quarks having a charge that is a fraction of e).
Thus, one really doesn’t need a special unit to denote the charge on an
object. One only needs an integer denoting the number of fundamental
charges on the object. Whether e itself has units is a question that is
-

considered in quantum mechanics. We will take the classical physics

approach and assign a unit to charge, that being the Coulomb.. In terms of
Coulombs, e ≈ 1.6×10−19 Coulombs. The charge on any material object is
equal to: q = (Np − Ne)1.6 × 10−19 Coulombs, and is consequently
quantized. When macroscopic objects are ”charged” large numbers of
electrons are transfered (around 1010 or more). Because of this, we are not
sensive to the quantization of charge and tend to think of charge as a
continuous quantity. Millikan (1909) was the first to demonstrate
experimentally that charge is quantized, and received a Nobel Prize for his
discovery.

 Conductors and insulators

The behavior of an object that has been charged is dependent upon whether
the object is made of a conductive or a nonconductive material. Conductors
are materials that permit electrons to flow freely from particle to particle. An
object made of a conducting material will permit charge to be transferred
across the entire surface of the object. If charge is transferred to the object at
a given location, that charge is quickly distributed across the entire surface of
the object. The distribution of charge is the result of electron movement.
Since conductors allow for electrons to be transported from particle to
particle, a charged object will always distribute its charge until the overall
repulsive forces between excess electrons is minimized. If a charged
conductor is touched to another object, the conductor can even transfer its
charge to that object. The transfer of charge between objects occurs more
readily if the second object is made of a conducting material. Conductors
allow for charge transfer through the free movement of electrons.
Insulators are materials that impede the free flow of electrons from atom to
atom and molecule to molecule. If charge is transferred to an insulator at a
given location, the excess charge will remain at the initial location of
charging. The particles of the insulator do not permit the free flow of
electrons; subsequently charge is seldom distributed evenly across the surface
of an insulator.

Applications
While insulators are not useful for transferring charge, they do serve a
critical role in electrostatic experiments and demonstrations. Conductive
objects are often mounted upon insulating objects. This arrangement of a
conductor on top of an insulator prevents charge from being transferred
from the conductive object to its surroundings. This arrangement also allows
for a student (or teacher) to manipulate a conducting object without
touching it. The insulator serves as a handle for moving the conductor
around on top of a lab table.
 CHARGING BY INDUCTION
One common demonstration performed in a physics classroom involves the
induction charging of two metal spheres. The metal spheres are supported by
insulating stands so that any charge acquired by the spheres cannot travel to
the ground. The spheres are placed side by side (see diagram i. below) so as
to form a two-sphere system. Being made of metal (a conductor), electrons
are free to move between the spheres - from sphere A to sphere B and vice
versa.

If a rubber balloon is charged negatively (perhaps by rubbing it with animal

fur) and brought near the spheres, electrons within the two-sphere system
will be induced to move away from the balloon. This is simply the principle
that like charges repel. Being charged negatively, the electrons are repelled
by the negatively charged balloon. And being present in a conductor, they
are free to move about the surface of the conductor. Subsequently, there is a
mass migration of electrons from sphere A to sphere B. This electron
migration causes the two-sphere system to be polarized (see diagram ii.
below). Overall, the two-sphere system is electrically neutral. Yet the
movement of electrons out of sphere A and into sphere B separates the
negative charge from the positive charge.
 Looking at the spheres individually, it would be accurate to say that sphere
A has an overall positive charge and sphere B has an overall negative charge.
Once the two-sphere system is polarized, sphere B is physically separated
from sphere A using the insulating stand. Having been pulled further from
the balloon, the negative charge likely redistributes itself uniformly about
sphere B (see diagram iii. below). Meanwhile, the excess positive charge on
sphere A remains located near the negatively charged balloon, consistent
with the principle that opposite charges attract. As the balloon is pulled
away, there is a uniform distribution of charge about the surface of both
spheres (see diagram iv. below).
This distribution occurs as the remaining electrons in sphere A move
across the surface of the sphere until the excess positive charge is uniformly
distributed.
 PROPERTIES OF ELECTRIC CHARGE

1) Additive nature of charges

Charges are additive in nature means they’re like scalars and can be added
directly. For An Example consider a system which consists of two charges
namely q1 and q2. Now we wish to find the total charge of the system. The total
charge of the system will be the algebraic sum of q1 and q2 i.e.q1 + q2. The same
thing holds for a number of charges in a system. Let's say a system contains
q1,q2,q3,q4……….qn, then the net charge of the entire system will be
= q1 + q2 + q3 + q4 + ………………………..+ qn
The charge is a scalar quantity as it has only magnitude and no direction. The
charge is just as other fundamental properties of the system like mass. The
only difference between mass and charge is that charge is both positive and
negative, while mass is always positive.

2) Charge is conserved
The charge is a conserved quantity which means charge can neither be created
nor be destroyed but can be transferred from one body to another by certain
methods like conduction and induction. As charging involves rubbing two
bodies, it is actually a transfer of electrons from one body to another. We can’t
create a charge in a body but eventually can transfer them to another body
with some convenient methods.
In a system when charges are distributed accordingly, by the principle of
conservation the net charge of the system remains constant. As an example if
5 C is the total charge of the system, then it can be redistributed as 1C, 2C and
2C or in any other possible permutation, but by conservation principle the net
charge of system will always be 5 C. Although the charge carriers may be
destroyed in a system but the net charge will remain conserved.
3) Quantization of charge
Charge only comes in countable numbers. The smallest amount of
charge that has ever been observed is the charge on the electron
and/or the charge on the proton (both the same amount, but
opposite type). Hence the term "quantization of charge." Quantum
or "quantized" means that it is numbered or integer-countable (can
come in -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, etc. but not 1.5 or pi, etc), and a quantum is
essentially one of those quantized objects. The total charge on a
charged object is therefore the number of individual charges, all of
which are either electrons or protons, multiplied by the charge on
one of them. This explains the existence of the following equation:
Q=n*e

Coulomb’s law is a quantitative statement about the force between

two point charges. When the linear size of charged bodies are much
smaller than the distance separating them, the size may be ignored
and the charged bodies are treated as point charges. Coulomb
measured the force between two point charges and found that it
varied inversely as the square of the distance between the charges
and was directly proportional to the product of the magnitude of the
two charges and acted along the line joining the two charges. Thus, if
two point charges q1 , q2 are separated by a distance r in vacuum,
the magnitude of the force (F) between them is given by ,

Principle of Superposition of Electrostatic Forces:- This principle states that

the net electric force experienced by a given charge particle q0 due to a
system of charged particles is equal to the vector sum of the forces exerted on
it due to all the other charged particles of the system.
Electrostatic Force due to Continuous Charge Distribution:-
The region in which charges are closely spaced is said to have continuous
distribution of charge. It is of three types given as below:
Electric Field Lines :-Electric field lines are a way of pictorially mapping
the electric field around a configuration of charge(s). These lines start on
positive charge and end on negative charge. The tangent on these lines at any
point gives the direction of field at that point.
Electric field lines due to positive and negative charge and their combinations
are shown as below:
Electric Field Intensity The electric field intensity at any point due to source charge is
defined as the force experienced per unit positive test charge placed at that point without
disturbing the source charge. It is expressed as

Electric Field Intensity (EFI) due to a Point Charge

Electric Field due to a System of Charges

Same as the case of electrostatic force, here we will apply principle of
superposition, i.e.
Electric Dipole
Two point charges of same magnitude and opposite nature separated by a
small distance altogether form an electric dipole.

Electric Dipole Moment

The strength of an electric dipole is measured by a vector quantity known as
electric dipole moment (p) which is the product of the charge (q) and
separation between the charges (2l)
.
Electric Field due to a Dipole
Electric field of an electric dipole is the space around the dipole in which the electric
effect of the dipole can be experienced.

DIPOLE IN A UNIFORM EXTERNAL ELECTRIC FIELD

Torque on an electric dipole placed in a uniform electric field (E) is given by

Dipole is in stable equilibrium in uniform electric field when angle between

p and E is 0° and in unstable equilibrium when angle θ= 180°.
Net force on electric dipole placed in a uniform electric field is zero.
There exists a net force and torque on electric dipole when placed in
nonuniform electric field.

Work done in rotating the electric dipole from θ to θ is 1 2

W = pE (cos θ1 – cos θ2)

Potential energy of electric dipole when it rotates from θ = 90° to θ =0
1 2

U = pE (cos 90° – cosθ) = -pE cos θ = – p .E

Work done in rotating the dipole from the position of stable equilibrium to
unstable equilibrium, i.e. when θ1 = 0° and θ2 = π. W = 2 Pe
Work done in rotating the dipole from the position of stable equilibrium
to the position in which dipole experiences maximum torque, i.e. when θ 1 = 0° and
θ2 = 90°.
W = pE

APPLICATIONS
The value of dipole moment helps to predict the shape of the
molecule. For example, experiments show that the dipole moment of
BeF2 is zero. This is possible only if bond dipoles of two Be – F bonds
cancel each other.

GAUSS’S LAW
According to Gauss’s law, the total of the electric flux out of a closed surface
is equal to the charge enclosed divided by the permittivity. The total electric
flux through a closed surface is zero if no charge is enclosed by the surface. o
Gauss’s law is true for any closed surface, no matter what its shape or size.
o The term q on the right side of Gauss’s law includes the sum of all
charges enclosed by the surface. The charges may be located anywhere
inside the surface.
o In the situation when the surface is so chosen that there are some charges
inside and some outside, the electric field [whose flux appears on the left
side of Eq. (1.31)] is due to all the charges, both inside and outside S.
The term q on the right side of Gauss’s law, however, represents only the
total charge inside S. o The surface that we choose for the application of
Gauss’s law is called the Gaussian surface. The Gaussian surface can pass
through a continuous charge distribution. o Gauss’s law is useful for the
calculation of the electrostatic field for a symmetric system. o Gauss’s law
is based on the inverse square dependence on distance contained in the
 Coulomb’s law. Any violation of Gauss’s law will indicate departure from
the inverse square law.

The great significance of Gauss’s law is that it is true in general, and not only
for the simple cases we have considered above. Let us note some important
points regarding this law:
(i) Gauss’s law is true for any closed surface, no matter what its shape or
size.
(ii) The term q on the right side of Gauss’s law, includes the sum of all
charges enclosed by the surface. The charges may be located
anywhere inside the surface.
(iii) In the situation when the surface is so chosen that there are some
charges inside and some outside, the electric field [whose flux appears
on the left side of Eq. is due to all the charges, both inside and
outside S. The term q on the right side of Gauss’s law, however,
represents only the total charge inside S.
(iv) The surface that we choose for the application of Gauss’s law is called
the Gaussian surface. You may choose any Gaussian surface and
apply Gauss’s law. However, take care not to let the Gaussian surface
pass through any discrete charge. This is because electric field due to
a system of discrete charges is not well defined at the location of any
charge. (As you go close to the charge, the field grows without any
bound.) However, the Gaussian surface can pass through a
continuous charge distribution.
(v) Gauss’s law is often useful towards a much easier calculation of the
electrostatic field when the system has some symmetry. This is
facilitated by the choice of a suitable Gaussian surface.
(vi) Finally, Gauss’s law is based on the inverse square dependence on
distance contained in the Coulomb’s law. Any violation of Gauss’s law
will indicate departure from the inverse square law.

Field due to an infinitely long straight uniformly charged wire

Consider a long straight wire which carries the uniform charge per
unit length . We expect the electric field generated by such a
charge distribution to possess cylindrical symmetry. We also expect
the field to point radially (in a cylindrical sense) away from the wire
(assuming that the wire is positively charged).

THE GAUSSIAN SURFACE FOR A LONG THIN WIRE OF UNIFORM LINEAR CHARGE DENSITY
Let us draw a cylindrical gaussian surface, co-axial with the wire, of radius
and length --see Fig. 11. The above symmetry arguments imply that the
electric field generated by the wire is everywhere perpendicular to the
curved surface of the cylinder. Thus, according to Gauss' law,

(70)

where is the electric field-strength a perpendicular distance from the

wire. Here, the left-hand side represents the electric flux through the
gaussian surface. Note that there is no contribution from the two flat ends of
the cylinder, since the field is parallel to the surface there. The right-hand
side represents the total charge enclosed by the cylinder, divided by . It
follows that ,

(71)

The field points radially (in a cylindrical sense) away from the wire if ,

and radially towards the wire if .

APPLICATIONS
Researchers use symmetry to find the electric field due to a charged virus that
is spherically symmetric, or a charged DNA that has some kind of symmetry
or charged symmetrical objects in nanotechnology. I am looking for such
specific applications.

Field due to a uniformly charged infinite plane

As another example, we will calculate the field from a uniform plane sheet
of charge. Suppose that the sheet is infinite in extent and that the charge per
unit area is σ. We are going to take another guess. Considerations of
symmetry lead us to believe that the field direction is everywhere normal to
the plane, and if we have no field from any other charges in the world, the
fields must be the same (in magnitude) on each side. This time we choose
for our Gaussian surface a rectangular box that cuts through the sheet, as
shown in Fig. The two faces parallel to the sheet will have equal areas, say
A. The field is normal to these two faces, and parallel to the other four.
The total flux is E times the area of the first face, plus E times the area of the
opposite face—with no contribution from the other four faces. The total
charge enclosed in the box is σA. Equating the flux to the charge inside, we
have
 EA+EA=σAϵ0,

EA+EA=σAϵ0,
from which E=σ2ϵ0,

E=σ2ϵ0,

a simple but important result.

A sphere of charge; a spherical shell

We have already used Gauss’ law to find the field outside a uniformly
charged spherical region. The same method can also give us the field at points
inside the sphere. For example, the computation can be used to obtain a good
approximation to the field inside an atomic nucleus. In spite of the fact that
the protons in a nucleus repel each other, they are, because of the strong
nuclear forces, spread nearly uniformly throughout the body of the nucleus.