哈里德 物理学基础 学习指导 21 Electric Charge概论.pdfVIP

Chapter 2L Electric Charge So far, every force on an object has been exerted by something else in contact with it, except for gravity. There is a second type of force that can act without being in contact, and that is electricity. Eventually there will be a third such force gnetism. Electric forces occur between two objects that each have a special character about them. For lack of anything better, w€ call this special trait charge. Charge comes in two types, which we call positive and negative. Then a charge (the object) ir an object that has charge (the character trait). We use the word both ways and use the context to determine which way were using the word each time. When we want to include the charge in an equation, we typically use q or A for amount of charge (the character trait) that a charge (the object) has. Either q or Q is used, but if both occur in the same problem then they refer to different amounts of charge (the trait). While q is a variable that could be positive or negative, *q implies an unknown amount of positive charge and -q implies an unknown amount of negative charge. The most basic charges (the objects) are the proton and the electron. (This is not entirely true but works well until the last chapter of the book.) Protons have positive charge and electrons have the same amount of negative charge. Because the charge of a proton or electron appears so often in physics, we give it a special symbol e. e is the arnount of charge on a proton or electron, so the charge of an electron is -e. Charge is measured in coulombs, abbreviated C. The charge of a proton e is 1.6 x 10-1e C. Inversely, a coulomb is about 6 x 1018 protons or electrons. The charge on an electron is -1.6 x 10-1e C. Any two charges create an electric force on each other. Two charges of the same sign repel each other, while two charges of opposite sign attract each other. The magnitude of the force they create