Electric Charge and Fields Lecture Notes

Vocabulary flashcards covering the properties of electric charge, transfer of charge, Coulomb's Law, and electric field principles.

Benjamin Franklin

The individual who named the two different kinds of electric charges: positive and negative.

Law of charges

A fundamental law stating that like charges repel each other and opposite charges attract.

Conservation of charge

A fundamental law of nature stating that electric charge is conserved because charge is a property of matter, and matter is conserved.

Quantization of charge

The principle that all charge is a multiple of a fundamental unit of charge, symbolized by $e$, appearing as $ext{ extpm}e, ext{ extpm}2e, ext{ extpm}3e$, etc.

Fundamental unit of charge ($e$)

The magnitude of charge of a single electron or proton, which is equal to $1.602 hinspace176 imes 10^{-19} hinspace C$.

Coulomb ($C$)

The SI unit of electric charge.

Conductor

A material, such as metal with a "sea of free electrons," in which charges (electrons) can move freely and distribute over the entire surface.

Insulator

A material where charges cannot flow freely and have no tendency to move to other regions on the surface; examples include glass, rubber, plastic, and wood.

Semiconductors

Materials that possess electrical properties between those of conductors and insulators, such as silicon and germanium.

Superconductors

Materials that have zero electrical resistance when they reach a specific certain temperature.

Charles Coulomb

The scientist (1736 – 1806) who formulated the law describing the electric force between two charges.

Coulomb Constant ($k_C$)

A proportionality constant used in the calculation of electric force, equal to $8.987 hinspace5 imes 10^9 hinspace N imes m^2/C^2$.

Coulomb’s Law

The law stating that electric force is proportional to $1/r^2$, expressed as $F_{\text{electric}} = \frac{k_C q_1 q_2}{r^2}$.

Electric field ($E$)

A region where an electric force $F_e$ on a positive test charge $q_0$ can be detected; the unit is $N/C$.

Electric field lines

A conventional aid introduced by Michael Faraday for visualizing electric field patterns, where the number of lines is proportional to field strength.

Michael Faraday

The individual who introduced the concept of electric field lines to visualize electric field patterns.