Question

What is meant by an electric dipole? Also explain its moment.

Answer 1

What is Electric Dipole?

Suppose there are two charges of equal magnitude ‘q’, separated by a distance ‘d’. Let the first charge be negative and the second charge be positive. This combination can be called an electric dipole. Therefore, we can say that an electric dipole is created by the combination of equal and opposite charges by a separation of a certain distance.

Electric Dipole moment:

The electric dipole moment for this pair of equal and opposite charges is equal to the magnitude of the charges multiplied by the distance between them.

Magnitude of Electric dipole moment,  p=Q*d

Direction of Electric dipole moment:

The electric dipole moment is a vector quantity; it has a defined direction which is from the negative charge to the positive charge. Though, it is important to remember that this convention of direction is only followed in Physics. In Chemistry, the convention is taken to be opposite i.e. from positive to negative. The line along the direction of an electric dipole is called the axis of the dipole.

I do hope you understand the point. If you have any query about this, you can ask in the comments.