Electrostatics Vocabulary

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Flashcards for Electrostatics

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20 Terms

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Fundamental property of matter with two types: Positive (+) and Negative (-). Like charges repel, opposite charges attract.

Electric Charge

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Total charge remains constant in a closed system; charge is transferred, not created/destroyed.

Law of Conservation of Charge

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Materials where electrons move freely, allowing charge to spread on the surface.

Conductor

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Materials where electrons are bound, keeping charge localized.

Insulator

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Charging by rubbing two materials together.

Charging by Friction

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Charging by direct contact between charged and uncharged objects.

Charging by Conduction

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Charging without direct contact, through the influence of an electric field.

Charging by Induction

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Describes the force between two point charges; attractive if charges are opposite, repulsive if charges are alike.

Coulomb's Law

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The principle that the total force on a charge is the vector sum of the forces from all other charges.

Superposition Principle

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Region around a charged object where a force would be exerted on other charged objects.

Electric Field

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Lines that represent the direction and strength of an electric field; away from positive charges and toward negative charges.

Electric Field Lines

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The amount of work done per unit charge to move a test charge in an electric field; a scalar quantity.

Electric Potential

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Surfaces where the electric potential is constant; always perpendicular to electric field lines.

Equipotential Surfaces

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A law that relates the electric field to the distribution of electric charge; useful for symmetric charge distributions.

Gauss's Law

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In electrostatics, the electric field inside is zero, excess charge resides on the surface, and the surface is an equipotential.

Conductors in Electrostatics

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Conductors block external electric fields; used in Faraday cages.

Shielding

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The ratio of charge to potential difference in a capacitor; measured in Farads (F).

Capacitance

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A measure of a material's ability to reduce the electric field inside a capacitor, thereby increasing capacitance.

Dielectrics

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Two equal and opposite charges separated by a distance.

Electric Dipoles

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A vector quantity representing the orientation and magnitude of an electric dipole.

Dipole Moment