Electric intensity at orthocenter of a triangle.

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Julian102
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Homework Statement



At the vertices of a triangle there are + 5C, -7C, -3C of charge respectively. What is the electric intensity and direction at its orthocentre?

Homework Equations



Each side of the triangle is 1 mm in length.

The Attempt at a Solution


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I failed to find the distance of the vertices from the orthocenter of the triangle.
 
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You should first find the distance of the orthocenter from the vertices. Since this is an equilateral triangle, orthocenter is the centroid. You can use trigonometry or pythagoras theorem to find the distance. After that, calculate field intensity due to each charge. The direction of the field will be along the line joing the charge and the orthocenter, either away from or towards the charge. Then you can add the fields "vectorially" to get the resultant field.
 
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cnh1995 said:
You should first find the distance of the orthocenter from the vertices. Since this is an equilateral triangle, orthocenter is the centroid. You can use trigonometry or pythagoras theorem to find the distance. After that, calculate field intensity due to each charge. The direction of the field will be along the line joing the charge and the orthocenter, either away from or towards the charge. Then you can add the fields "vectorially" to get the resultant field.
Thanks.