Question

A 13 µC charge is located in a 288 N/C electric field. What is the force the charge experiences? (Hint: 1 µC = 10−6C ). Calculate to 4 decimals

Answer 1

Answer

The coulomb's law tells us how to find the electrostatic force between two point charges q₁ and q₂ seperated by a certain distance. The expression is given below,

                       (In SI unit)

   Where F is the mafnitude of the electrostatic force, q₁ and q₂ are the magnitude of charges, and 'r' is the distance between the two charges. is the permittivity of free space and is equal to 8.85 x 10^-12 F.m^-1 (in SI unit)

Now the electric field of a charge is defined as the force it exerts per unit charge. In order to find the expression for electric field of charge q₁ consider q₂ as a unit charge i.e., take q₂ = 1 C. Then the magnitude of Electric field of charge q₁ is given by,

    

Now this implies the force exerted by the charge q₁ on the charge q₂ becomes,

         (from the first equation)

Using this equation we can solve the problem. Substitute the given parameters.

This is the force experienced by the charge.