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Ralphonsicus
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I read an article on Coulomb's law which read, ''Coulomb's law only applies to point charges'' (or something along those lines). Am I wrong, or is there an equivalent that can work for magnets/big electric charges?
You are correct, Coulomb's law only works for point charges. If you have a spherically symmetric charge then you can use Newton's shell theorem in conjunction with Coulomb's law to get the force. For more general distributions of charge you need to use Gauss' law. Coulomb's law is essentially Gauss' law evaluated for a point charge.Ralphonsicus said:Am I wrong, or is there an equivalent that can work for magnets/big electric charges?
DaleSpam said:You are correct, Coulomb's law only works for point charges. If you have a spherically symmetric charge then you can use Newton's shell theorem in conjunction with Coulomb's law to get the force. For more general distributions of charge you need to use Gauss' law. Coulomb's law is essentially Gauss' law evaluated for a point charge.
Yes, he made his experiment with charged spheres. I am pretty sure that he knew about Newton's shell theorem since it had been in existence for quite some time by then.Hassan2 said:I wonder if Coulomb made his experiment with uniformly charged spheres. And also if he knew about the Newton's shell theorem. Otherwise he couldn't postulate the law precisely.
DaleSpam said:Yes, he made his experiment with charged spheres. e time by then.
Coulomb's Law is a fundamental principle in physics that describes the electrostatic interaction between two charged particles. It states that the magnitude of the electrostatic force between two point charges is directly proportional to the product of their charges and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.
No, Coulomb's Law can also be applied to non-point charges, such as charged spheres or cylinders. However, it is important to note that the charges must be concentrated in a small enough area such that they can be treated as point charges for the equation to be accurate.
Yes, Coulomb's Law applies to both attractive and repulsive forces between charged particles. The direction of the force depends on the sign of the charges involved - like charges (positive-positive or negative-negative) will repel each other, while opposite charges (positive-negative) will attract.
Coulomb's Law and Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation are similar in that they both describe the force between two objects, but they differ in the type of force being described. Coulomb's Law deals with electrostatic forces between charged particles, while Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation deals with the gravitational force between any two objects with mass.
The constant in Coulomb's Law, also known as the Coulomb constant, has the units of Newton-meter squared per coulomb squared (N•m2/C2). This unit is used to maintain the proper units for the equation: Force (N) = (Coulomb constant) * (product of charges in coulombs) / (distance between charges in meters squared).