Experiment 3

Equipotential lines
 Purpose of the experiment
• To investigate the equipotential surfaces
created by two oppositely charged conductors
• To map the electric field lines using these
equipotential lines.
 Coulomb’s Law

ke is Coulomb’s constant (ke ≈ 8.988×109 N⋅m2⋅C−2)

The magnitude of the electrostatic force F between two point charges q1

and q2 is directly proportional to the product of the magnitudes of
charges and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between
them. Like charges repel each other, and opposite charges mutually
attract.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coulomb%27s_law
 Electric Field
• Many common forces might be referred to as “contact forces,” such as your hands
pushing or pulling a cart, or a tennis racket hitting a tennis ball.
• In contrast, both the gravitational force and the electrical force act over a distance:
there is a force between two objects even when the objects are not touching. The
idea of a force acting at a distance was a difficult one for early thinkers. Newton
himself felt uneasy with this idea when he published his law of universal
gravitation. A helpful way to look at the situation uses the idea of the field,
developed by the British scientist Michael Faraday (1791–1867). In the electrical
case, according to Faraday, an electric field extends outward from every charge
and permeates all of space

An electric field surrounds every charge.

The red lines indicate the electric field
extending out from charge Q, and P is an
arbitrary point

Douglas C. Giancoli, Physics: Principles with Applications

https://brainly.in/question/4861543
 Electric field
• Electric field is defined as the electric force per
unit charge.
 Electric field
The electric field strength is exactly proportional to the number of field
lines per unit area, since the magnitude of the electric field for a point
charge is:
• Field lines represent the direction and their
closeness (that is, their areal density or the
number of lines crossing a unit area)
represents strength

The electric field surrounding three different point charges. (a) A positive charge.
(b) A negative charge of equal magnitude. (c) A larger negative charge.
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/physics/chapter/18-5-electric-field-lines-multiple-charges/
(a) Two negative charges produce the fields shown. It is very similar to the field produced
by two positive charges, except that the directions are reversed. The field is clearly weaker
between the charges. The individual forces on a test charge in that region are in opposite
directions. (b) Two opposite charges produce the field shown, which is stronger in the
region between the charges

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/physics/chapter/18-5-electric-field-lines-multiple-charges/
 Properties of Electric Field Lines
• Field lines must begin on positive charges and terminate on
negative charges, or at infinity in the hypothetical case of
isolated charges.
• The number of field lines leaving a positive charge or
entering a negative charge is proportional to the magnitude
of the charge.
• The strength of the field is proportional to the closeness of
the field lines—more precisely, it is proportional to the
number of lines per unit area perpendicular to the lines.
• The direction of the electric field is tangent to the field line
at any point in space.
• Field lines can never cross.

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/physics/chapter/18-5-electric-field-lines-multiple-charges/
 Electric potential energy (U)
Potential energy can be defined as the capacity for doing work which arises from
position or configuration. In the electrical case, a charge will exert a force on any other
charge and potential energy arises from any collection of charges. For example, if a
positive charge Q is fixed at some point in space, any other positive charge which is
brought close to it will experience a repulsive force and will therefore have potential
energy. The potential energy of a test charge q in the vicinity of this source charge will
be:
 Electric potential (V)
V= U/q (Potential energy per unit charge of the
particle)

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/potpoi.html
Equipotential Lines
http://hyperphysics.phy-
astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/equipot.html
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/equipot.html
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/elewor.html
 (a) These equipotential lines might be measured with a voltmeter in a laboratory experiment. (b) The
corresponding electric field lines are found by drawing them perpendicular to the equipotentials. Note that
these fields are consistent with two equal negative charges.

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/physics/chapter/19-4-equipotential-lines/
The electric field and equipotential lines
between two metal plates.

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/physics/chapter/19-4-equipotential-lines/
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