Nathaniel Kan

Physics 201b
Problem Set 2

1)

Question 6:

Eight field lines will still emerge from the closed surface, because the number of field
lines that emerge depends on the strength of the charge inside the surface. Because that
charge doesn’t change, the number of lines that emerge don’t either. What does change is
where the field lines emerge from, the charge outside the surface will affect the electric
field directly around it.

Question 13:

The field of an infinite line charge falls of at 1/r. This is not a violation of the inverse
square law, because the inverse square law applies to force calculated from discreet
points. When you some all of the points in an infinite line in an integral, there is an r
which cancels one r from 1/r2. This r comes from the area of the cylinder that a set
distance forms around the line.

Question 16:

Coulomb’s Law is E = kQ/r2. Because within the sphere Q increases in three dimensions
(as charge contained in a growing sphere) while r increases only in two, the field can
increase as the distance from the center of the sphere increases.

Question 21:

The electric field at the surface of a conductor in electrostatic equilibrium cannot have
components parallel to the surface because if it did, a charge would move along the
surface. That would mean there was an internal electric field, and the conductor would
not be in electrostatic equilibrium.