Battery & Capacitor: Why No Big Forces?

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the forces acting on electrons in the vicinity of battery terminals and capacitor plates. Participants explore the nature of electric fields, the behavior of charges, and the implications of Coulomb's law at small scales, focusing on theoretical and conceptual aspects rather than practical applications.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Conceptual clarification
  • Debate/contested

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants question why electrons do not experience large forces when near battery terminals or capacitor plates, given the presence of electric fields.
  • One participant calculated forces at very small scales using Coulomb's law, suggesting significant forces at distances around 10^-14 m from an electron.
  • Another participant argues that the force on an electron from a charged plate is not as strong as it would be inside the capacitor, suggesting that the repulsion from other electrons creates a balance that limits the force experienced.
  • There is a discussion about treating charge as a continuum due to the large number of electrons involved, which may affect how forces are conceptualized.
  • Concerns are raised about the ability of an electron on one plate to influence an electron on another plate, considering the strength of atomic forces compared to electrostatic forces.
  • Participants discuss the binding energy of electrons in atoms and how this relates to the ability of electrons to be removed from their atoms in conductive materials.
  • One participant emphasizes that Coulomb's law may not be applicable for extended objects like capacitor plates, as the distribution of charge affects the force experienced by an approaching electron.
  • There is mention of the need for quantum physics to accurately describe interactions at very small scales, where classical laws may fail.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express differing views on the nature and magnitude of forces acting on electrons near charged plates, with no consensus reached on the underlying mechanisms or calculations involved.

Contextual Notes

Limitations include the potential inapplicability of Coulomb's law at very small distances and the complexity of interactions in conductive materials, which may not be fully addressed in the discussion.

Biker
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(Look at the level above)

If you have a battery which is made by two plates having opposite charges ( constant E-Field), But outsidethe electric field doesn't cancel out. (The same applies to capacitors) not infinite

So the question is why doesn't an electron get affected by a really huge force when it gets so close form the positive or the negative terminal from the outside?
 
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Have you tried calculating the force?
 
CWatters said:
Have you tried calculating the force?
Yep I did on really small scales it was huge around 10^-14 m from the center of an electron for example (Using coulomb's law) from just a single electron. The electric field from other electrons will add up too (not directly but by a component at least).

Still haven't learned how to integrate (This year I hope). What should be the work done by it?
 
Biker said:
So the question is why doesn't an electron get affected by a really huge force when it gets so close form the positive or the negative terminal from the outside?
Can you explain your reasoning why it should be affected by a large force ?
The effect could AT MOST be as strong as if it was inside the capacitor.
You don't actually push any electrons that close together..
The other electrons get repelled and leave some room where the next electron can "sit".

I also think that it is more useful to think of charge as a continuum rather than discrete charges in this case since there are so ridiculously many electrons that they essentially behave like a continuum.Oh and if you think "but the force between two bits of charge is steadily increasing as you move closer, how can the force remain almost constant"
The answer is : While the force from one bit of charge increases the angle of the force of the other charges becomes "worse" these effects cancel each other out.
 
Tazerfish said:
Can you explain your reasoning why it should be affected by a large force ?
The effect could AT MOST be as strong as if it was inside the capacitor.
You don't actually push any electrons that close together..
The other electrons get repelled and leave some room where the next electron can "sit".

I also think that it is more useful to think of charge as a continuum rather than discrete charges in this case since there are so ridiculously many electrons that they essentially behave like a continuum.
For example, Assume that one plates is connected to the negative terminal of the battery. On that plate, it will gather a negative charge. How can the force of this electron or (charge)on a plate remove an electrons from its atom on the other plate where the force is so strong?
 
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Biker said:
remove an electrons from its atom where the force is so strong?
I still don't get it. Why would an electron be "removed from its atom". We are in a conductor and probably a metal.
The electrons aren't bound to a single atom...
Could you please formulate an easily readable sentence ? Maybe consider making a diagram.
This really doesn't make much sense to me.
Sorry
 
I think what Biker means is...

Assume that one plate of a capacitor is connected to the negative terminal of a battery and the other plate is connected to the positive terminal of the battery. The negative plate will gather a negative charge. How can an electron (E1) on the negative plate repel a second electron (E2) from the positive plate? Surely the force holding E2 to it's atom is stronger than the force between E1 and E2 because it's very much closer to it's atom than it is to E1?
 
The answer is that the atom of the positive plate have some fixed electrons as well as protons.

http://www.chemistry.uoguelph.ca/educmat/atomdata/bindener/elecbind.htm

An electron, which is negatively charged, is attracted to the nucleus of an atom because of the positive charge that is there. The amount of energy that is required to be given to the electron to pull it away from this attractive (Coulombic) force is called the binding energy. For the hydrogen atom, this is an exactly solvable problem (both at the non-relativistic level -the Schršdinger equation- and at the relativistic level -the Dirac equation). However, when more than one electron is present in orbit around a nucleus one must further consider the electrostatic repulsion which arises between the electrons. Because of this additional repulsion, the energy one needs to give a certain electron to remove it from the nucleus is now less than would be needed otherwise. This electron-electron repulsion makes the problem unsolvable analytically. However, many effective and accurate numerical methods have been developed to calculate the binding energies including these additional terms.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal

Atoms of metals readily lose their outer shell electrons, resulting in a free flowing cloud of electrons within their otherwise solid arrangement. This provides the ability of metallic substances to easily transmit heat and electricity.
 
Biker said:
Yep I did on really small scales it was huge around 10^-14 m from the center of an electron for example (Using coulomb's law) from just a single electron. The electric field from other electrons will add up too (not directly but by a component at least).

You can't simply use coulomb's law to calculate the force when you're dealing with extended objects like plates of a capacitor or terminals of a battery. As tazerfish said in post #4, the charge on each plate is spread out all over the the plate. As the electron approaches, different parts of the plate are at different distances from the electron, so the force exerted by the charge at each section of the plate on the electron is different and will be much, much less than assuming the charge on each plate is at a single point. Also, 10-14 m is about a thousand times smaller than even an atom, which is around 10-10 m, so you wouldn't use distances of this magnitude to calculate the force on an electron in a circuit. In addition, at this scale even coulomb's law begins to fail and you would need to use quantum physics to accurately calculate things.

Biker said:
How can the force of this electron or (charge)on a plate remove an electrons from its atom on the other plate where the force is so strong?

In a conductor, one or more electrons from each atom are "free", meaning that they are not bound to a single atom. Instead, they move around the entire conductor and are able to respond to electric and magnetic fields, which is why a conductor has very low electrical resistance and other properties. It takes very little force to move an electron off of a conductor. It's only when you remove a great many that the force needed becomes large.
 

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