Electric Force Equation Vector
The electric force between charged bodies at rest is conventionally called electrostatic force or coulomb force.
Electric force equation vector. 469 70 as the electric field is defined in terms of force and force is a vector i e. Coulomb s law or coulomb s inverse square law is an experimental law of physics that quantifies the amount of force between two stationary electrically charged particles. This physics video tutorial explains how to calculate the net electric force on a point using vector components given a total of 3 point charges. The electric field is a vector quantity and the direction of the field lines depends on the sign of the source charge.
Electric field vectors point away from positively charged sources and toward negatively charged sources. The coulomb force formula you wrote depends on some position vectors vec r 1 vec r 2 much like fields phi vec r depend on the position vector vec r but it s a different kind of a dependence. An electric field is a vector quantity and can be visualized as arrows going toward or away from charges. According to coulomb s law the force between the two point charges mentioned above is dependent on the medium in which two charges are located and the effect of medium on the force is brought into the mathematical equation of electric force by a constant of proportionality denoted by k.
Having both magnitude and direction it follows that an electric field is a vector field. Coulomb s law states that the electrical force between two charged objects is directly proportional to the product of the quantity of charge on the objects and inversely proportional to the square of the separation distance between the two objects. The electric field is defined at each point in space as the force per unit charge that would be experienced by a vanishingly small positive test charge if held at that point. The quantity of electrostatic force between stationary charges is always described by coulomb s law.
An electric field is a region of space around an electrically charged particle or object in which an electric charge would feel force. This electric field is the source of the electrostatic force that nearby charged objects experience.