BS 3rd Evening A

Session 2019-2023
Course Title : Electricity and Magnetism-1
Course code :Phy-407
Credit Hours :3(3-0)
Lecture# 2
Topic : Coulombs Law
Teacher Name:
Ms. Adeela Umar
 Coulombs Law
Learning outcomes: Be able to understand coulombs law and its properties.
Describe and calculate the forces between like and unlike electric
charges.

Contents
 Electric charges
 Conservation of charges
 Coulombs Law
Electric charges
 Electric charge is a physical property of matter that causes it to
experience a force when kept in an electromagnetic field.
 Positive and negative are the two types of electric charges,
commonly carried by charge carriers protons and electrons. 
 When the net charge of an object equals to zero, the object is said to
be neutral.
 The movement of electric charges are responsible for the production
of one of the many types of energy known as electrical energy.
Electric charges
 The electric charge is measured using coulomb.
 1 coulomb is the quantity of charge transferred in one second.
 Q = I.t
 Where,
• Q is the electric charge
• I is the electric current
• t is the time
Electric charges

 All ordinary matter contains both

positive and negative charge.
 You do not usually notice the charge
because most matter contains the exact
same number of positive and negative
charges.
 An object is electrically neutral when
it has equal amounts of both types of
charge.
Properties of Electric Charge

 Additive of Electric Charge

 Conservation of Electric Charge
 Quantization of Electric Charge

 Where n is an integer (zero, a positive or a negative number)

and e is the basic unit of charge, that is, the charge carried by an
electron or a proton. The value of e is 1.6 × 10-19C.
Coulombs Law
 The magnitude of the electrostatic force of attraction or repulsion
between two point charges is directly proportional to the product of
the magnitudes of charges and inversely proportional to the square
of the distance between them.
 The Coulomb's Law is given by the expression:
Coulombs Law
 where
 Fe is the electric force
 q1 and q2 are electric charges
 k is the Coulomb's constant 8.988×109 N⋅m2/C2
 r is the distance of separation
 Coulomb is described as the quantity of the charge passing through a
cross-section of electrical conductor which carries one ampere per
second.
 The SI unit for the electric charge is Coulomb and is equal to around
6.242×1018 e.
Coulombs Law
Coulombs Law

 The force between two

charges gets stronger as the
charges move closer
together.
 The force also gets stronger
if the amount of charge
becomes larger.
Coulombs Law

 The force between two charges is directed along the line connecting
their centers.
 Electric forces always occur in pairs according to Newton’s third
law, like all forces.
 The force between charges is directly proportional to the magnitude,
or amount, of each charge.
 Doubling one charge doubles the force.
 Doubling both charges quadruples the force.
Coulombs Law
Coulombs Law

 The force between charges is inversely proportional to the square

of the distance between them.
 Doubling the distance reduces the force by a factor of 22 = (4),
decreasing the force to one-fourth its original value (1/4).
 This relationship is called an inverse square law because force and
distance follow an inverse square relationship.
References:

 Fundamentals of Electric Circuits, 5th Edition by Charles Alexander, Matthew

Sadiku.
 Fundamentals of Physics 10th Edition by Halliday & Resnick.