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Lecture

Electric Fields: Charge Distributions (I)

In course

PHYS-201(d): General physics: electromagnetism

The topics covered by the course are concepts of electromagnetism, properties of waves, and fluid mechanics. ...

Description

This lecture covers the calculation of electric fields from continuous charge distributions, including single charges, line charges, 2D planes of charges, and charged 3D bodies. The superposition principle is introduced, allowing for the summation of field contributions from individual charges. Various integration techniques are discussed for 1D, 2D, and 3D charge distributions. The lecture emphasizes the importance of analyzing the distribution and symmetry of the problem before calculation. Strategies for simplifying calculations through symmetry considerations are presented, along with the concept of charge densities in 1D, 2D, and 3D. The lecture concludes with the calculation of the electric field from a continuous charge distribution on an infinitely long line.

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Instructor

Dirk Grundler

Official source

Ontological neighbourhood

Physics

Electromagnetism: Electrodynamics

Related concepts (32)

Charge density

In electromagnetism, charge density is the amount of electric charge per unit length, surface area, or volume. Volume charge density (symbolized by the Greek letter ρ) is the quantity of charge per unit volume, measured in the SI system in coulombs per cubic meter (C⋅m−3), at any point in a volume. Surface charge density (σ) is the quantity of charge per unit area, measured in coulombs per square meter (C⋅m−2), at any point on a surface charge distribution on a two dimensional surface.

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 charge

Electric charge is the physical property of matter that causes it to experience a force when placed in an electromagnetic field. Electric charge can be positive or negative (commonly carried by protons and electrons respectively, by convention). Like charges repel each other and unlike charges attract each other. An object with no net charge is referred to as electrically neutral. Early knowledge of how charged substances interact is now called classical electrodynamics, and is still accurate for problems that do not require consideration of quantum effects.

Electromagnetic field

An electromagnetic field (also EM field or EMF) is a classical (i.e. non-quantum) field produced by moving electric charges. It is the field described by classical electrodynamics (a classical field theory) and is the classical counterpart to the quantized electromagnetic field tensor in quantum electrodynamics (a quantum field theory). The electromagnetic field propagates at the speed of light (in fact, this field can be identified as light) and interacts with charges and currents.

Electric potential

The electric potential (also called the electric field potential, potential drop, the electrostatic potential) is defined as the amount of work energy needed per unit of electric charge to move this charge from a reference point to the specific point in an electric field. More precisely, it is the energy per unit charge for a test charge that is so small that the disturbance of the field under consideration is negligible.

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