# Whats the principle of superposition

1. Sep 17, 2012

### spock9000

Hello

I would appreciate if someone can refresh my mind with the principle of superposition..

2. Sep 17, 2012

### SHISHKABOB

3. Sep 17, 2012

### spock9000

lol yeah wikipedia was my first website but i didnt understood that explanations i already found an easy explanations.. thanks anyway..

Superposition Principle

The Superposition Principle states that net electric field produced at any point by a system of charges is equal to the vector sum of all individual fields, produced by each charge at this point

http://physics-help.info/physicsguide/electricity/electric_field.shtml

4. Sep 18, 2012

### Khashishi

The superposition principle is a property of a linear system/function/algebra. If the function f is linear, then if
$A=f(a)$
$B=f(b)$
then
$A+B=f(a+b)$
This is the superposition principle and it works for any sort of linear or approximately linear problem. Electromagnetism and quantum mechanics are linear. More specifically, the electric field is a linear function of the charge distribution.
$\textbf{E}(\vec{x})=f(\rho(\vec{x}))$
So, if you know the electric field for two charge distributions, you can easily figure out the electric field for the combined charge distribution.