Brandon Medina Chapter 3.

2 Summary Electricity and Magnetism The Method of Images The first part of section 2 of chapter 3 asks a very interesting question. It tells us to suppose that there is a point charge held at some distance above an infinite grounded conducting plane. The question is then what is the potential in the region above the plane? The problem with this question is that we dont know how much charge is induced or distributed. One way to solve this is by understanding mathematically that V=0 when z=0, and that V-> 0 far from the charge is x^2 +y^2 +z^2 >>d^2. Combining this with the uniqueness theorem we can take an approach that forgets the original problem but satisfies these aspects. As it turns out the potential is the same as if we have a positive charge at d and a negative charge at distance d, because of the uniqueness theorem. From the potential it is a straightforward matter of finding the surface charge on the conductor because it is simply equal to epsilon knot multiplied with the partial derivative of the potential. Thinking about the question that was first suggested in this section we can conclude that the charge will be attracted toward the plane, because of negatively induced charge. But we already know that the field and potential are the same as in the case with +q and q, so we can say that the force will also be the same in this case. However, the work done is not the same in both cases because in the case with the two charges both sides contributed equally, where as in that infinite plane case z>0 has a non zero field, so it is half the value.