GEN.

PHYSICS 2

Coulomb’s Law
 Charles Augustin de Coulomb

• A French physicist in 1785

• He coined a tangible relationship in mathematical form
between two bodies that have been electrically charged.
• He published an equation for the force causing the bodies
to attract or repel each other, which is known as
Coulomb’s law or Coulomb’s inverse-square law.
2
 Newton’s Law of Gravity Formula

1. Daniel Bernoulli-1760
2. Joseph Priestly & Henry Cavendish-1770

Presentation title 3
4
 Force as a
Vector Quantity
The electrical force is expressed using the
unit Newton.

The strength of the electrical interaction is

a vector quantity that has both magnitude
and direction.

The direction of the electrical force is

dependent upon whether the charged
objects are charged with like charge or
opposite charge and upon their spatial
orientation. 5
 Properties of the Coulomb's Law

1. The force that is involved will either be repulsive or

attractive.
2. Like charges tend to repel while opposite charges tend
to attract each other.
3. The charges that are involved will either be negative or
positive they can never be neutral.
6
 Coulomb's Law Equation

• The law looks at the forces created between two charged

objects.
• As distance increases, the forces and electric fields decrease.
• the force of attraction or repulsion between two charged
bodies is directly proportional to the product of their charges
and inversely proportional to the square of the distance
between them.
7
 Formula

𝐾 |𝑞 1 𝑞 2|
𝐹= 2
𝑑

8
 Constants

𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑚𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑒 space/𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑚𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑣𝑎𝑐𝑢𝑢𝑚

•

proton =
electron=
mass of one electron=
9
 Example
• Two balloons are charged with an identical quantity and type of
charge: -6.25 nC. They are held apart at a separation distance of 61.7
cm. Determine the magnitude of the electrical force of repulsion
between them.
Given:

𝑑=61.7 𝑐𝑚 𝑜𝑟 0.617 𝑚
10
Required:
F= ?
Equation:

Solution:
F=

Answer:

11
 Problems
1. What is the magnitude of the electrostatic force that the two protons
inside the nucleus of a helium atom exert on each other with a distance
of ?

2. Compute the electric force between two charges of and which are
separated by .

3. What is the total charge of 75.0 kg of electrons?

Presentation title 12
4. What must be the distance between point charge q1 = 26.0 µC and
point charge q2 = −47.0 µC for the electrostatic force between them to
have a magnitude of 5.70 N?

5. A point charge q1 = 2 µC located at origin and another point charge

q2 = −5 µC is on the coordinate (x = 3, y = 4) m.

(a) Find the electric force on charge q1.

(b)Is the force attractive or repulsive?

13