PHYS 208 Lecture 1

From Notes
Jump to navigation Jump to search

« previous | Tuesday, August 30, 2011 | next »


Do the following before next class:

  • Take eLearning quizzes.
  • Get Lab manual from bookstore

Chapter 21: Electric Charge and Electric Fields

Matter has other fundamental properties other than mass: Electric Charge

Default charge is neutral (0)

Electric Charge

Measured in coulumbs

We don't know where it comes from

There are 2 types:

Positive (protons)
charge on a plastic rod after being rubbed with fur (fur is now negatively charged)
Negative (electrons)
charge on a glass rod when rubbed with silk (silk is now positively charged)

When bonds between + and - are broken, the charges are divided evenly.

Like charges repel and unlike charges attract

The smallest value of a charge is the charge on an electron (1.6 × 10−19 coulombs), and all charge values must be integer multiples of this number or "quantized" [1]

Footnotes

  1. quantized: restriction of the number of possible values of (a quantity) or states of (a system) so that certain variables can assume only certain discrete magnitudes.