Electric field

An electric field (sometimes E-field) is the physical field that surrounds electrically charged particles and exerts force on all other charged particles in the field, either attracting or repelling them. It also refers to the physical field for a system of charged particles. Electric fields originate from electric charges and time-varying electric currents. Electric fields and magnetic fields are both manifestations of the electromagnetic field, one of the four fundamental interactions (also called forces) of nature. Electric fields are important in many areas of physics, and are exploited in electrical technology. In atomic physics and chemistry, for instance, the electric field is the attractive force holding the atomic nucleus and electrons together in atoms. It is also the force responsible for chemical bonding between atoms that result in molecules. The electric field is defined as a vector field that associates to each point in space the electrostatic (Coulomb) force per unit of charge exerted on an infinitesimal positive test charge at rest at that point. The derived SI unit for the electric field is the volt per meter (V/m), which is equal to the newton per coulomb (N/C). 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 stationary at that point. As the electric field is defined in terms of force, and force is a vector (i.e. having both magnitude and direction), it follows that an electric field is a vector field. Fields that may be defined in this manner are sometimes referred to as force fields. The electric field acts between two charges similarly to the way the gravitational field acts between two masses, as they both obey an inverse-square law with distance. This is the basis for Coulomb's law, which states that, for stationary charges, the electric field varies with the source charge and varies inversely with the square of the distance from the source.