What career opportunities are available in electrostatics?

[stringtheory]

I'm currently a high school senior planning on going to college
to study Electrical Engineering. I've become quite fascinated by
the topic of electrostatics and so I'm wondering what careers/jobs
are there in this field?

 

[chroot]

Electrostatics? You mean, like solving problems with point charges on a plane?

- Warren

 

[Poop-Loops]

Electrostatics don't really happen in nature. Everything tends to move, making everything fairly complicated.

That is, assuming you mean what chroot and I think you mean.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrostatics

 

[chroot]

Right... electrostatics is basically an idealization used to teach people about Coulomb's law and the superposition principle. The only direct application of electrostatics that I know of is in electrostatic speakers, and even electrostatic speakers move constantly.

- Warren

 

[Poop-Loops]

Besides, if you think electrostatics are interesting, wait until you get to magnetostatics and electrodynamics. That's where the fun stuff happens.

 

[chroot]

Agreed... electrostatics is pretty boring. All the problems are basically the same.

- Warren

 

[mda]

While I agree that electrodynamics are generally more interesting, there are a number of interesting problems in modern physics that can be accurately modeled using electrostatics. So it's not all boring.

 

[stringtheory]

Thank you for your replies!
I do look forward to learning about magnetostatics and electrodynamics.

 

[Locrian]

While I agree that electrodynamics are generally more interesting, there are a number of interesting problems in modern physics that can be accurately modeled using electrostatics. So it's not all boring.

Like what, out of curiosity?

 

[Poop-Loops]

I can't think of any myself, but I'm assuming it's something that is a very special case, similar to using the method of images in electrostatics. i.e. by total coincidence you can model it with electrostatics.