HOME ASSIGNMENT -1 (FULLY NCERT TEXT BASED)

Chapter: Electric Charges and Fields

Answer Key

Answer the following questions briefly/ Fill in the blanks:

1. All of us have the experience of seeing a spark or hearing a crackle when we take off our
synthetic clothes or sweater, particularly in dry weather. What is the reason behind this?
Ans: The reason for these experiences is discharge of electric charges through our body, which
were accumulated due to rubbing of insulating surfaces.
2. The fact that electric charge is always an integral multiple of e is termed as..........
Ans: Quantisation of charge
3. Coulomb used a ...............balance for measuring the force between two charged metallic
spheres.
Ans: Torsion Balance
4. Coulomb’s law has also been established down to ............ level (r ~ 10-10 m).
Ans: Subatomic
5. .......... is an elegant way of characterising the electrical environment of a system of
charges.
Ans: Electric field
6. Electric field at a point in the space around a system of charges tells you the ........ a unit
positive ........ would experience if placed at that point (without disturbing the system).
Ans: Force, test charge
7. Electric field is a characteristic of the .......... and is independent of the ........charge that
you place at a point to determine the field.
Ans: System of charges, test charge
8. The term .......... in physics generally refers to a quantity that is defined at every point in
space and may vary from point to point.
Ans: Field
9. Electric field is a ............ field, since force is a vector quantity.
Ans: Vector
10. The true physical significance of the concept of electric field, however, emerges only
when we go beyond electrostatics and deal with time dependent .......... phenomena.
Ans: Electromagnetic
11. Discuss the field picture in terms of time dependent electromagnetic phenomena.
Ans: The field picture is this: the accelerated motion of charge q1 produces
electromagnetic waves, which then propagate with the speed c, reach q2 and cause a force
on q2.
12. A source of .............. electromagnetic fields, turned on for a short interval of time and
then switched off, leaves behind propagating ........... fields transporting energy.
Ans: Time-dependent, electromagnetic
13. The concept of field was first introduced by .......... and is now among the ....... concepts
in physics.
Ans: Faraday, central
14. Look at the field lines below due to a positive point charge,

(i) Why do the vectors get shorter as one goes away from the origin?
Ans: Since the magnitude of electric field at a point decreases inversely as the square
of the distance of that point from the charge, the vector gets shorter as one goes away
from the origin,
(ii) Why the density of field lines is more near the charge and less away from the charge?
Ans: Electric field is strong near the charge, so the density of field lines is more near
the charge and the lines are closer. Away from the charge, the field gets weaker and
the density of field lines is less.
(iii) Under what conditions electric flux through a surface becomes (i) maximum (ii)
minimum?
Ans: Electric flux = ⃗. ⃗ = cos
(i) Maximum flux: When the electric field is perpendicular to the area itself or in
other word ⃗ ∥ ⃗ then = 0 and
= ⃗. ⃗ = cos 0 = = maximum
(ii) Minimum flux: When the electric field is parallel to the area itself or in other
word ⃗ ⊥ ⃗ then = 90 and
= ⃗. ⃗ = cos 90 = 0 = minimum