Coulombs Law of Electrostatic Force

Introduction: The objective of this experiment is to investigate and verify Coulombs law for
the electrical force between two point charges (simulated using two small conducting spheres).
Additionally the method of charging by induction will be explored.
Figure 1: Setup for the Coulomb's Law of Electrostatic Force experiment showing the Coulomb's
Force Law it! "guide bloc sphere! suspended sphere! chamber#! and the $in%l strip and wool
s&uare used to charge the guide bloc sphere'
E&uipment: Coulombs !orce law set"up and #it including cotton $ wool s%uares &olyethylene
white vinyl strips, PC computer with Excel software package.
Typically the apparatus will be already set"up for you.
(lease be $er% careful the set)up is delicate'
'ome features of the set"up are(
). * guide bloc#s with coated pith balls attached that will slide in and out of the unit.
*. ) coated pith ball attached to monofilament hung and centered up in the unit.
+. A mirror and scale attached to the bac# of the unit to eliminate measurement errors due to
parallax.
,. Top cover to eliminate air currents.
-f the e%uipment is not already setup when you arrive you will need to complete this step.
*heor%:
The electrical interaction between two charged particles is described in terms of the forces
exerted between them. -n )./+ Augustin Coulomb conducted the first %uantitative
measurements of these forces. 0e used a very sensitive torsion balance to measure the forces
between two 1point charges2 that is charged bodies whose dimensions are small compared to the
distance between them. Coulomb found that the electrical force between two point charges is(
Directly proportional to the product of the charges, inversely proportional to the square of the
distance between them and always acts along a line joining the two charges. 3athematically we
can express the magnitude of this force as

*
* )
r
q q
k F = "1#
where # is the coulomb constant and has a value of 4x)5
4
6 m
*
7C
*
%
)
and %
*
are the charges on
point charges ) and * respectively and r is the distance between the two charges.
-n order to understand Coulombs 8aw we need to note a few additional properties of electrical
charge.
). There are two types of charge9 we call them positive and negative. 8i#e charges repeal
unli#e charges attract.
*. Charge is %uanti:ed that is we can not isolate any smaller amount of charge than the
charge of a proton (positive) or electron (e%ual in magnitude to the charge on a proton
but negative).
+. Charge is conserved. ;e can physically move it around but we can not create nor
destroy it.
,. All matter is made of charged particles. Typically the positive and negative charges are
present in e%ual numbers. ;hen we say something is charged we mean it possesses a
slight imbalance in the number of positive and negative charges.
Figure +: Charging b% Induction' ,ote how
the sphere becomes polari-ed when the
charged rod comes close' ,otice how the
excess negati$e charge forced to the opposite
side of the sphere lea$es the sphere when the
sphere is grounded
Figure .: E&uall% charging both spheres'
(0int( !ill in the open circles in front of the procedure steps to help you perform the experiment)
(rocedure:
Dependence of Force on Distance:
o <egin by removing the right side guide bloc# and setting it aside.
o Then inducti$el% charge the sphere attached to the left side guide bloc#. =o this by rubbing
the white vinyl strip with the wool s%uare. <ring the sphere on the guide bloc# near to the
charged vinyl strip. DO NOT touch the strip to the sphere. ;hen the sphere is close to the
vinyl strip simply touch the sphere with your finger. (>ou are acting as a 1ground2 here
see the inductive charging of one sphere in !igure *. A ground can be thought of as an
infinite sin# into which to send charge that will never become filled.) ?emove your finger
from the sphere. After you have removed your finger from the sphere slowly pull the sphere
away from the charged vinyl strip. The sphere on the guide bloc# is now inducti$el%
charged. ;or# carefully " if you touch the sphere to anything now it will immediately
discharge and you will have to charge it again. Also wor# %uic#ly but not sloppily as
humidity in the air will allow charge to lea# off of the spheres. ,ote well: -f while the vinyl
strip is close to the sphere you hear a 1crac#ling2 sound that means that the strip was close
enough to the sphere for charge to 1jump the gap2. That is charge actually moved through
the air from the strip to the sphere. The sphere is now uncharged and you will need to
recharge the vinyl strip and repeat the process. This electrical discharge is very similar to
what happens in an electrical storm.
o -nsert the charged sphere7guide bloc# in the left side of the chamber.
,ote what happens just before the spheres touch. =o they attract or repel or do nothing@ >ou
will notice that just before the spheres touch the uncharged (suspended) sphere will be
drawn toward the charged sphere. This only happens at very short distances. These distances
are considered short in comparison to the diameters of the spheres. Auestion( Can you
explain this attraction between the two spheres at a small distance@ 'ee !igure +.
o Bently slide the charged sphere up to the suspended sphere and bring them into contact.
;hen they touch the same charge is e%ually distributed between the two spheres. Cach
sphere has the same amount of charge. ?ead through the 1!urther Cxplanation2 section
below before proceeding.
Further Eplanation:
The suspended sphere is initially uncharged. This does not mean that the sphere has no charged
particles on it( it only means that the number of positively charged particles is the same as the
number of negatively charged particles so the net charge is :ero. ;hen the charged sphere is
brought near to the uncharged sphere the uncharged sphere becomes polari-ed. The li#e charges
feel a repulsive force and are forced to the far side of the uncharged sphere while the unli#e
charges are attracted to the near side of the uncharged sphere. ?ecall the sphere is a conductor.
That means there are charges free to move about on the sphere. !or conductors it is the electrons
that are free to move about (not all electrons are free to move it depends on the atomic structure
of the conducting material). ;hen electrons move to one side of the sphere under the influence
of the electric force the side they move to will ac%uire a net negative charge while the side they
move away from ac%uires a net positive charge. The unli#e charges are much closer to the
charged sphere than the li#e charges. A glance at C%uation ()) shows that distance really counts
(!
C
D )7r
*
) so the attractive force between the unli#e charges is larger than the repelling force of
the li#e charges. The spheres are attracted.
Ence the spheres have touched the charge carried by the sphere on the guide bloc# is distributed
e%ually between the two spheres and their li#e charges cause them to spring apart. 8et us ta#e a
moment and thin# about why the charge is e%ually shared between the two spheres after they are
brought into contact. <efore they touch only one sphere was charged. The excess charges on
that sphere felt repulsive forces between each other. ?ecall the sphere is a conductor and charge
is free to move about. The excess charge moved until the net force on each was :ero. This
means that the excess charge on the sphere becomes e%ually distributed over the surface of the
sphere. ;hen the two spheres are brought into contact they become momentarily one large
conducting surface. 6ow the excess charges have a larger area over which to distribute
themselves. They will again move until the net force on each is e%ual to :ero. 'ince the two
spheres are e%ual in si:e this means distributing themselves e%ually over the surface of both
spheres which means each sphere gets an e%ual portion of the excess charge.
Figure /: 0se the side $iew window! the scale and
mirror along the bac wall to measure d and r' ,ote
the differance between the distance d "distance the
hanging sphere is diplaced from e&uilibrium# and the
distance r "distance between the centers of the two
spheres#'
Figure 1: 0se the scale to measure d and r' 0se
the mirror along the bac wall to help reduce
parallax'
!rocedure "ontinued:
o -t may be necessary to charge the two spheres several times to get a sufficient repulsive
force. This is the case if bringing the guide bloc# sphere into close proximity to the hanging
sphere does not result in a reasonably large separation between the two. To increase the
charge on the two spheres #eep charging the guide bloc# sphere by induction then bring it
into contact with the suspended sphere. -f you can not bring the two spheres into contact
easily they are already sufficiently charged. 6ote well that if the repulsive force between
the two spheres results in one of them hitting the side of the apparatus (or even the string of
the hanging sphere hitting the apparatus) you have lost the charge on that sphere and you
must start the charging processes over. The more charge on the suspended sphere the better.
The greater the charge the greater the displacement between the two spheres. This will
result in better the resolution of your measurements. 0owever remember if the charge on
the spheres and thus the repulsive force between them is sufficient you may cause the
hanging sphere 1bounce around2 and hit the apparatus. -t may ta#e a bit of practice to get the
right amount of charge on the spheres. A good rule of thumb is that if the separation between
the two spheres is about *cm then you have sufficient charge built"up on the spheres. The
number of iterations re%uired to build"up sufficient charge will depend greatly on the amount
of moisture in the air. =uring a dry winter day one or two iterations will li#ely be sufficient.
0owever during a humid summer day five to ten iterations may be re%uired.
o Ence you have charged the spheres sufficiently then for several different values of the
separation distance r measure the displacement of the suspended sphere from e%uilibrium d
(see !igure , and !igure F). Gse your measurement of d to determine the repulsive
electrostatic force F
E
(see C%uation and the accompanying explanation below). Tabulate
your results.
Analysis:
;e wish to analy:e the dependence of the electrical force between the two spheres on the
distance between the spheres. -n order to do this we need a method to directly measure the force
between the two spheres. !igure H shows a force diagram for the two spheres. ;e apply
6ewtons laws to develop the relationship (formula) giving the electrostatic force between the
two spheres as a function of the suspended spheres displacement from its e%uilibrium position
d. This allows us to determine the force F
E
by direct measurement of the distance d.
8oo#ing at the !orce diagram (!igure H) and applying 6ewtons 'econd law in component form
we can see that
)
.
) ( 5
) ( 5

= =
= =

"os # mg F
$in # F F
y
E
"+#
;here F
E
is the electrostatic repulsive force between the spheres and mg is the weight of the
suspended sphere. Combining these e%uations results in(
. ) ( #an
mg
F
E
=
".#
;e also note from the figure that
. ) (
%
d
#an = "/#
;here d is the displacement of the suspended sphere from its e%uilibrium position and % is the
length of the suspended spheres wire. Combining C%uations (+) and (,) we arrive at
.
%
d
mg F
E
= "1#
)
,ote 2ell: ;e assume that the angle is small enough that the change in elevation of the suspended sphere can
be neglected. This allows us to ta#e the electrical force between the two spheres to be completely hori:ontal and
the displacement from e%uilibrium d to be simply related to the length % and the angle as given in C%uation (,).
6ote we have measured the mass of the suspended sphere and the length % for you and have
determined their values to be m I 5.5.Jg and % I *+.Fcm. 6otice from !igure , that r is the
separation between the two spheres (center to center distance).
Figure 3: Forces acting on the hanging sphere' *he distances d and r are also shown'
Answer7address the following(
). Address the %uestion stated above in the procedure9 1"an you eplain this attraction between
the two spheres at a small distance&2
*. &lot a graph of the force as a function of the separation of the two spheres (r). Comment on
the graph. =oes it loo# as you would expect@ ;hy or why not.
+. &lot a graph of the force as a function of '(r
)
@ -s the graph linear@ ;hat would a linear
dependence between F
E
and '(r
)
tell you@ &hysically what does the slope of this plot
represent@ !rom this slope determine the charge on each sphere (remember they are e%ual).
Dependence of Force on "harge:
;e now wish to investigate how the force varies with the charge of the two spheres. To do this
we will actually be ta#ing charge off of the suspended sphere (reducing its net charge). 6ote that
during this part of the experiment the separation distance between the spheres r will be held
constant.
o ?echarge the spheres as before it may ta#e a few iterations and set the position of the left
guide bloc# and sphere near the suspended sphere so that the suspended sphere is displaced a
few centimeters.
o 6ote the separation of the two charges r and the distance d (which yields the electrostatic
force). This trial represents both spheres fully charged with e%ual charges q.
o To change the charge on the suspended sphere touch the right guide block sphere with your
finger (this is to remove any excess charge on the right guide bloc# sphere K use your fingers
not your palm as moisture will effect your results) then move the right guide bloc# $ sphere
into the chamber and touch the suspended sphere with the right guide bloc# sphere. The
charge on the suspended sphere will be e%ually distributed between the suspended sphere and
the right guide bloc# sphere. The suspended sphere now has one half its original charge.
o ?emove the right guide bloc# $ sphere. 6ow recall that we wish to determine the
dependence of the electrostatic force on charge in this part. That means we wish to #eep the
distance between our spheres fixed. 'ince we just reduced the charge on one of the spheres
and its weight is fixed the distance between the spheres will change on its own and must be
reset to its initial value. After repositioning the left guide bloc# and sphere so that the
separation distance r is reset to its initial value measure the distance d the displacement of
the suspended sphere from e%uilibrium in order to once again deduce the force between the
spheres. This trial now gives you the force F
E
between the spheres separated by a distance
r and having charges q and q7*.
o ?epeat this process to obtain more data points say , or F trials. That is(
Gse the right guide bloc# and sphere (after you touch it to discharge it) to reduce
the charge on the suspended ball to one half its initial value.
?eposition the left guide bloc# to reset the distance between the left guide bloc#
sphere and the suspended sphere to the desired value of r.
3easure the distance d in order to determine the electrostatic force F
E
.
Analysis:
). &lot a graph of the force between the suspended sphere and the left guide bloc# sphere as a
function of the product of the charges on the two spheres. ;hat you will really be plotting is
not F
E
as a function of q
'
q
)
we do not actually #now the value of the initial charges q. &lot
F
E
as a function of q
'
q
)
7q
)
9 that is ) L M etc.
*. =escribe how the force depends on the product of the charges@ That is is your plot linear
%uadratic etc@ =oes this agree with the theory and Coulombs law@
+. &hysically what does the slope of your plot represent@ -t may help to loo# at C%uation (H)
below
N N
*
*
*
* )
*
*

r
k q
q
q q
r
k q
F
E

= "3#
where as stated above ta#es on the values ) L M etc.
,. Gsing your slope determine the initial charge on each sphere q.