Electric potential at the center of a dipole

[kavan]

Potential at the center of an electric dipole is zero. This doesn't make intuitive sense, how can work required to bring an arbitrary charge from infinity to the center of a dipole be zero? Imagine a charge at some distance on horizontal bisector of the dipole, it will deflect from the horizontal line and get attracted to one or the other dipole charge...that means there will be some nonzero work involved to bring test charge to the center of the dipole. Can anyone please throw some light on it?

 

[jtbell]

Imagine a charge at some distance on horizontal bisector of the dipole, it will deflect from the horizontal line and get attracted to one or the other dipole charge...that means there will be some nonzero work involved to bring test charge to the center of the dipole.

No. If the particle moves along the bisector line, the electric force on it is always perpendicular to the direction of motion. Therefore the force that you exert on the charge to counteract the electric force and keep the charge from straying from the line, does no work.

 

[kavan]

Oh...got it. Thanks a lot, i was stuck with it for quite some time.