Regarding electric field lines

Join the discussion
Ask a follow-up here, or get your own question answered by working scientists, mathematicians and engineers — people, not an autocomplete.
Real named experts · corrections over time · the nuance an AI answer skips
1 reply · 2K views
jaydnul
Messages
558
Reaction score
15
So if you have one positive charge and one negative charge (both with the same arbitrary number of field lines) close to each other, could you theoretically move a 2nd positive charge as close as desired to the first positive charge without them repelling? Or am i misunderstanding the concept of field lines? Would that negative charge eat up all the positive charge emitted from the first positive charge and just make the one big unit of neutral charge? I don't see how this could be however, because neutral atoms still repell each other because of the electrons on their outside shells...
 
Physics news on Phys.org
The electric field lines are a representation of the direction of force that a test charged particle would experience. In your example, the 2nd positive charge would still be repelled from the 1st positive charge and attracted to the negative charge.