GENERAL

PHYSICS

Southern Christian College

United Church of Christ in the Philippines
Midsayap, Cotabato

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SBE SHS
Electrostatic Force, Electric
Field, and Electric Flux
Lesson 2
How electric charges use force when they
interact with each other?

• The act of repelling implies pushing

• The act of attracting suggests pulling

Southern Christian College

United Church of Christ in the Philippines
Midsayap, Cotabato
Electrostatic Force
• The force which causes attraction and repulsion of charges
• Can be computed using Coulomb’s law for electrostatics:
FE
Where; FE = electrostatic force; unit is Newton
q1 and q2 = are the magnitude of the charges
r = the distance between the charges
k = Coulomb’s constant

Southern Christian College

United Church of Christ in the Philippines
Midsayap, Cotabato
Newton’s law vs. Coulomb’s law

Newton’s law Coulomb’s law

 Governs the  Quantifies the electrostatic
gravitational force force between two charges
between two bodies

Southern Christian College

United Church of Christ in the Philippines
Midsayap, Cotabato
Coulomb’s law
It states that an electrostatic force is directly proportional to the product of the
charges and is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between the two
charges
 This means that stronger charges will result in a stronger force , and weaker charges
will result in a weaker force

Southern Christian College

United Church of Christ in the Philippines
Midsayap, Cotabato
Futhermore…
 the greater the distance between the charges, the weaker is the force between
them
 the force strengthens as the charges move closer to each other

Southern Christian College

United Church of Christ in the Philippines
Midsayap, Cotabato
Example
What is the electrostatic force of attraction between a -6.0 x 10 ^-6 C charge and
a 4.0 x 10^-6 charge if they are separated by a distance of 3 meters?
Solution:
FE

FE

= 0.02 N

Southern Christian College

United Church of Christ in the Philippines
Midsayap, Cotabato
Superposition Principle

 states that individual electrostatic forces are added as vectors to yield a single
resultant vector
 similarly, you can say that the positive and negative traits of a person are part
of his/her identity

Southern Christian College

United Church of Christ in the Philippines
Midsayap, Cotabato
Example:
Three point charges are arranged along the y-axis in a vacuum. The topmost
charge bears a charge of -4.0 x 10^-6, the middle charge has a charge of
+3.0 x 10 ^-6, and the bottom one carries a -7.0 x10^-6. What is the magnitude
and direction of the net electrostatic force that the middle charge experiences?
*the force between the top chare and the middle charge is computed as:
Ftop-middle

Ftop-middle

= 2.7 N

Southern Christian College

United Church of Christ in the Philippines
Midsayap, Cotabato
Example cont…
*The force between the bottom charge and the middle charge is computed as
follows:
Fbottom-middle

Fbottom-middle

= -8.4 N

Southern Christian College

United Church of Christ in the Philippines
Midsayap, Cotabato
Example cont…
*The top charge will pull the middle charge upward (positive direction with
respect to the y-axis), whereas the bottom charge will pull the middle charge
downward (negative direction with respect to the y-axis). Thus, by the
superposition principle, we have;
Fnet

= -5.7 N
Thus, the middle charge experiences a net electrostatic force of approximately -
5.7 N.

Southern Christian College

United Church of Christ in the Philippines
Midsayap, Cotabato
Electric Field

Southern Christian College

United Church of Christ in the Philippines
Midsayap, Cotabato
Electric Field
The area or field around a charge where the electrostatic force can be
experienced
Can be computed using: E, Q is the source charge, and r is the distance from
the source charge where the electric field is being measured.
Unit: Newton per coulomb (N/C)
Source charge: charge from where the electric field comes from.
E

Southern Christian College

United Church of Christ in the Philippines
Midsayap, Cotabato
Electric Field
Example:
A charge of +3.0 x 10^8 C experiences an electrostatic force of 6.0 x 10^-8N.
Compute the force per coulomb that the charge experiences.
Solution:
E
E
= 2.0 N/C

Southern Christian College

United Church of Christ in the Philippines
Midsayap, Cotabato
Electric Flux
The flow of an electric field through a given area
ФE = (E) (A) (cosΘ)
Where; ФE= electric flux
E = electric field
A= area of the considered surface
Θ = angle between the electric field lines and the line perpendicular
to the surface A

Southern Christian College

United Church of Christ in the Philippines
Midsayap, Cotabato
Electric Flux
Sample:
What is the electric flux for the following sets of variables?
E= 3.4 x 10^23 N/C
A= 2.3 x 10 ^-2 m^2
Θ = 84°
ФE = (E) (A) (cosΘ)
ФE= (3.4 x 10^23 N/C) (2.3 x 10 ^-2 m^2) (cos 84)
= 8.17 x 10 ^20 V-m
Southern Christian College
United Church of Christ in the Philippines
Midsayap, Cotabato
 That’s all for this week. Keep
safe everyone

Southern Christian College

United Church of Christ in the Philippines
Midsayap, Cotabato