Electrostatics
Physics · 50 practice questions
Existence of positive and negative charges; charging a body by friction, contact and induction; the electroscope; Coulomb's inverse square law; electric field and potential, electric field intensity and potential difference; electric discharge and lightning.
- Identify charges and examine uses of an electroscope.
- Apply Coulomb's square law to solve electrostatics problems.
- Deduce expressions for electric field intensity and potential difference.
- Analyse charge distribution on a conductor and its use in lightning conductors.
Try a few questions
- Practice question 1
Charge tends to concentrate at
- A.flat, broad regions of a charged conductor
- B.exactly the geometric centre of a charged conductor
- C.regions of a conductor that are completely uncharged
- D.sharply pointed regions of a charged conductor
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D. sharply pointed regions of a charged conductor
This concentration of charge at sharp points is exactly the principle exploited in lightning conductor design.
- Practice question 2
Coulomb's law states that the force between two point charges is directly proportional to the product of their magnitudes and inversely proportional to
- A.the square of the distance between them
- B.the distance between them directly, without squaring
- C.the sum of their magnitudes
- D.the product of their masses
Show the answer
A. the square of the distance between them
This inverse square relationship with distance is a defining feature of Coulomb's law.
- Practice question 3
Electric potential is best described as a scalar quantity, while electric field intensity is best described as a
- A.scalar quantity, identical in nature to electric potential
- B.vector quantity
- C.quantity with no defined magnitude or direction
- D.unit rather than a physical quantity
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B. vector quantity
Potential has magnitude only, while field intensity specifically has both magnitude and direction.
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