The discussion revolves around understanding the electric field near a conducting shell with a charge inside it. Participants are exploring the implications of the charge's position and the properties of conductors in electrostatics.
Some participants have offered insights into the relevance of Gauss's law and the concept of equipotential surfaces. There is an ongoing exploration of symmetry and boundary conditions in relation to the electric field configuration.
There appears to be some uncertainty regarding the radius mentioned in the problem and the assumptions about symmetry required for applying Gauss's law effectively.
Induces a charge in the inner surface of the shell?PeroK said:
Have you studied that? Or, learned any techniques to find the electric field outside an asymmetric charge configuration?lys04 said:
I've learnt Gauss's law, if that's applicable.PeroK said:
Gauss's law is useful. What can you say about the potential on the surface of a conductor?lys04 said:
In a way: you will have to argue why the required symmetry (*) is present.lys04 said:
It's uniform?PeroK said:
Yeah I'm not sure about thatBvU said:
Yes. The surface of the shell must be an equipotential. Now, the potential is fully determined by the boundary conditions (technically this is a uniqueness property of electrostatic solutions). You know that outside the shell a spherically symmetric potential is a solution, so it must be the only solution.lys04 said: