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Concept
Coulomb's law
Summary
Coulomb's inverse-square law, or simply Coulomb's law, is an experimental law of physics that calculates the amount of force between two electrically charged particles at rest. This electric force is conventionally called electrostatic force or Coulomb force. Although the law was known earlier, it was first published in 1785 by French physicist Charles-Augustin de Coulomb, hence the name. Coulomb's law was essential to the development of the theory of electromagnetism and maybe even its starting point, as it allowed meaningful discussions of the amount of electric charge in a particle.
The law states that the magnitude, or absolute value, of the attractive or repulsive electrostatic force between two point charges is directly proportional to the product of the magnitudes of their charges and inversely proportional to the squared distance between them. Coulomb discovered that bodies with like electrical charges repel:
It follows therefore from these three tests, that the repulsive force that the two balls – [that were] electrified with the same kind of electricity – exert on each other, follows the inverse proportion of the square of the distance.
Coulomb also showed that oppositely charged bodies attract according to an inverse-square law:
Here, k_e is a constant, q_1 and q_2 are the quantities of each charge, and the scalar r is the distance between the charges.
The force is along the straight line joining the two charges. If the charges have the same sign, the electrostatic force between them makes them repel; if they have different signs, the force between them makes them attract.
Being an inverse-square law, the law is similar to Isaac Newton's inverse-square law of universal gravitation, but gravitational forces always make things attract, while electrostatic forces make charges attract or repel. Also, gravitational forces are much weaker than electrostatic forces. Coulomb's law can be used to derive Gauss's law, and vice versa. In the case of a single point charge at rest, the two laws are equivalent, expressing the same physical law in different ways.
Official source
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