# Homework Help: Charge vs. Electric Field Strength

1. May 20, 2008

### Sperry

The question in question:
"If charge was plotted versus electric field strength; what shape of graph would you get? How would you straighten in? What quantity would the slope of the straightened graph represent?"

Related equation: |E|= F/q

Ignoring the graphing information, the question (as far as I gather) seems to be asking me to rearrange for q/|E|.

Now,
|E|q = F
q = F/|E|
q/|E| = F/|E|^2
From that, plotting charge versus field strength results in Force versus the square of the field strength. Which doesn't seem very helpful at all. The units there are C/(N/C), or C^2/N.

So, my issue: Am I going about this in the right way? If so, where do I go from here? Does C^2/N represent anything of worth?

At a bit of a loss here, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

2. May 20, 2008

### rock.freak667

I think this is asking what you would plot so that the graph becomes a straight line.

You are correct in saying that $E=\frac{F}{Q}$ If you re-arrange for Q, you get
$Q = \frac{F}{E}$

How would you put that in the form Y=MX+C to get it into a straight line?