Electric Charge and Coulomb's Law

These flashcards cover key vocabulary and concepts related to electric charges and Coulomb's law in electrostatics, helping students understand fundamental principles.

Electric Charge

An intrinsic property of matter that causes it to experience a force when placed in an electromagnetic field.

Electrostatic Force

The force exerted by charged bodies on each other, which can be attractive or repulsive.

Positive Charge

The type of electric charge that glass rods obtain when rubbed with silk.

Negative Charge

The type of electric charge that rubber rods obtain when rubbed with fur.

Coulomb's Law

A law stating that the electrostatic force between two point charges is directly proportional to the product of the charges and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.

Frictional Electricity

Electricity generated through friction when two different materials are rubbed together.

Conservation of Charge

The principle that the total electric charge in an isolated system remains constant.

Quantization of Charge

The concept that electric charge exists in discrete amounts, specifically as integral multiples of the elementary charge.

Unit of Charge

The coulomb, which is defined as the amount of electric charge transported by a current of one ampere in one second.

Electric Field

A field around charged particles that exerts a force on other charged particles.

Electric Dipole

A pair of equal and opposite charges separated by a distance, creating a vector quantity called dipole moment.

Dipole Moment

A measure of the separation of positive and negative charges in a system, defined as the product of charge and the distance separating them.

Electric Flux

A measure of the electric field passing through a given area; the product of the electric field and the area through which it passes.

Gauss's Law

A law stating that the total electric flux through a closed surface is proportional to the enclosed electric charge.

Electric Field Intensity

The force per unit charge experienced by a small test charge placed in the field, measured in newtons per coulomb (N/C).

Line Charge Density

The amount of charge per unit length along a linear distribution of charge, measured in coulombs per meter (C/m).

Surface Charge Density

The amount of charge per unit area on a surface, measured in coulombs per square meter (C/m²).

Volume Charge Density

The amount of charge per unit volume of a three-dimensional space, measured in coulombs per cubic meter (C/m³).