Coulomb's Law And Electric Field between 2 Parallel Plates

AI Thread Summary
A uniform electric field exists between two oppositely charged parallel plates, with a proton released from the positively charged plate. The proton travels 1.59 cm to the negatively charged plate in 1.60 microseconds. The attempt to calculate the electric field and proton speed involved using kinematic equations and Newton's second law, but the acceleration calculated was found to be incorrect. The resulting electric field and speed values were also deemed incorrect, indicating a significant error in the calculations. Clarification on the correct approach and values is needed to resolve the discrepancies.
Yosty22
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Homework Statement



A uniform electric field exists in the region between two oppositely charged plane parallel plates. A proton is released from rest at the surface of the positively charged plate and strikes the surface of the opposite plate, 1.59cm distant from the first, in a time interval of 1.60×10−6s .

A). Find the magnitude of the electric field.
B). Find the speed of the proton when it strikes the negatively charged plate.

Homework Equations



F=ma
E=F/q
y=y_0+v_0t+1/2at^2

The Attempt at a Solution



Usually, to solve for the E field between two parallel plates, you use sigma/epsilon_0. However, I am not given sigma nor am I given anything about the dimensions of the plate, so I took the old kinematics route. First, I used the equation y=y_0+v_0t+1/2at^2. I said it starts from y_0=0 and it says it starts from rest, so I am left with y=1/2at^2. I plugged in the distance between the plates (.0159m) and the time (1.6*10^-6s) and solved for the proton's acceleration, which I found to be 1.24 m/s^2 in the negative y direction (towards the negative plate).

Next, I used F=ma - using the acceleration I just found (1.24 m/s^2) and the mass of the proton (1.6*10^-27kg) and solved for F. I got 1.984*10^-27N

Lastly, for part A, I used the equation E=F/q. Substituting the numbers in, I got that E=1.24*10^-8 N/C and it said that it was incorrect.

For part B, i used the acceleration I found above and plugged it into v=v_0+at and got V=1.984*10^-6, which was also wrong.

Any ideas what I did wrong?
 
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The value you obtained from acceleration seem to be off by many orders of magnitude.
 
nasu said:
The value you obtained from acceleration seem to be off by many orders of magnitude.

'Many' is right! :smile:
 
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