Electric Field at Point C with Multiple Sheets

[quantum_bit]

Homework Statement

Two very large, nonconducting plastic sheets, each 10.0 cm thick, carry uniform charge densities a,b,c,d on their surfaces. These surface charge densities have the values a= -6.00 nC, b= +5.00 nC, c= +2.00 nC, and d= +4.00 n\C.

Find the magnitude of the electric field at the point C, in the middle of the right-hand sheet.

looks like:


a----10 cm------b------12cm-----c------10cm------d
Point C is here----------------------------->

Homework Equations

Infinite sheet of charge field (charge)/(2*epsilon_0) N/C

The Attempt at a Solution

Well because the sheet is "Two very large, nonconducting plastic sheets," I treated them as thin infinite sheets with the distance of the thickness between them.

Adding the electric force vectors does not yield the correct answer, not sure where to go from there. I get the answer 169.491. I am not off by an order of magnitude even though it looks so. I have other problems of the same type that also give incorrect results.

I know the answer is 1.69×10^6 N/C but I am not sure how to get there.

 

[quantum_bit]

Close this I figured it out, the answer I was given as "correct" was the wrong one there was another answer in the paragraph talking about a correction. This was actually noted in the paragraph I just passed over it. I also used nanoC rather than micro Columbs, the symbols looked similar in the problem and I thought it it said n not the mu symbol.

The answer was 1.69×10^5 N/C.

 

[mgreene]

can you explain how you did this calculation? when I use the formula for the electric field due to an infinite sheet of charge that you have entered in your first post, i get 1.129x10^5 N/C instead of 1.69x10^5

I have simply ((4x10^-6)-(2x10^-6))/(2*E_o) = 1.129x10^5

thanks

 

[mgreene]

ok i realized you must add the charges from all 4 surfaces
so 2+5-4-6= -3microcoulombs