Maple [Maple] Calculating the potential produced by a charge

AI Thread Summary
The discussion centers around the challenges faced when using different software tools, specifically Maple and Mathematica, for calculating electric potential in a physics problem involving a charge outside a grounded conducting sphere. The user notes discrepancies in the potential values calculated by Maple, Mathematica, and PocketCas, particularly at the sphere's surface, where the potential is expected to be zero. Maple returns a value of approximately 3.18, Mathematica gives a very small number (0.0000114441), while PocketCas correctly outputs zero. The conversation highlights the importance of accurately implementing the method of image charges and suggests that understanding the calculation of the potential for both the charge and image charge system is crucial for resolving these discrepancies. The need for code sharing is emphasized to facilitate troubleshooting and assist others in identifying potential errors in the calculations.
Mauro Silva
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I have been using Maple for sometime as its document interface feels nicer and more friendly than mathematica's . I have never been able to plot arrows in Mathematica or use indices efficiently. I am more of a curious self teaching physics person. But I just found something interesting when calculating the potential produced by a charge placed outside of a conducting grounded sphere. This example is fully worked out by Jackson - Section 2.2 - Eqs 2.1 to 2.5.
In my numerical example the charge q= 1 Coulomb is placed at the coordinates <0.2 m, 0.2 m, 0.3 m> . The sphere has radius 0.1 m.
It happens that on the sphere, say at <0 m, 0 m, 0.1 m>, the potential should be zero but Maple evaluates it to 10/Pi ~ 3.18 and Mathematica evaluates it to 0.0000114441. On the other hand PocketCas for IOS 10 is giving me exactly zero!
Has anyone seen this kind of problem? Would I making any dumb mistakes ?
 
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Unless you show the code you are using, there is not much anyone can do to help.
 
In the example, the potential is understood to be 0 at the sphere's surface. Are you trying to calculate the potential of the charge & image charge system (without the conductor), and use that result to represent the potential of the charge & conductor system for points outside of the conductor?
 
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