Coulomb's Law: Solving Problems with Electric Charges

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Homework Help Overview

The discussion revolves around applying Coulomb's Law to problems involving electric charges. Participants are attempting to determine the resultant forces acting on specific charges based on given scenarios.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory, Assumption checking, Problem interpretation

Approaches and Questions Raised

  • Participants are sharing their attempts to solve the problem but express confusion regarding the absence of necessary information, such as mass values. Questions are raised about the correctness of the problem statement and the interpretation of angles in their solutions.

Discussion Status

The discussion is ongoing, with participants providing their attempts and questioning the clarity of the problem setup. Some guidance is offered regarding the interpretation of angles, but there is no explicit consensus on the correct approach or solution.

Contextual Notes

There are constraints noted regarding missing mass information and potential errors in the problem statement, which are being discussed among participants.

moeug1999
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Homework Statement
Consider the following figure. (The four charges are at the corners of a square. Take q = 1.07 µC and Q = 2.09 µC.)

(a) In the figure, what are the magnitude and direction of the resultant force on q1? (Take q1 as the origin of the coordinate system and measure the angle counterclockwise from the positive x-axis, which is directed towards the right.)

(b) What is the resultant force on the center of mass of the four charges?
Relevant Equations
The Coulombs law equation = k |q1||q2|/r^2
unnamed.jpg


This is my attempt but they said my answer is wrong
 

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Hello moeug , :welcome: !
moeug1999 said:
In the figure, what are the magnitude and direction of the resultant force on q1?
...
This is my attempt
I don't see an angle answer in your attempt ?

1580485381865.png

(the dog picture distracts from reading and checking the math)
 
(b) What is the resultant force on the center of mass of the four charges?
Is this serious ? Masses are not given and there is no question of a force out of the blue at any point. Was teacher in gross error here or is the problem statement misquoted ?
 
there are no masses given at all :(
 
BvU said:
Hello moeug , :welcome: !

I don't see an angle answer in your attempt ?

View attachment 256381
(the dog picture distracts from reading and checking the math)
my answer was -33 degrees but they said it was wrong :( and sorry about the paper
 
What about the directions of F 1,2 x and F 1,4 x
 

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