Zackary Park

E2 Pre-lab

1. In a conductor, any excess charges will always tend to such an arrangement that keeps
all points of the object at the same potential because if two points in the conductor had
different potentials, then there would be higher electric potential for electrons in one spot
than in another spot. Thus, the electrons in the higher spot would move to the spot with
lower electric potential.

2. If two different conducting objects are connected by a conducting wire that is removed,
the two objects, assuming that they are similar in size, will have the same charge and the
same potential because electrons flow from higher electric potential to lower electric
potential; therefore, the electrons will flow until equilibrium is reached for the electric
potential. Also, if the objects are similar and the capacitance is similar, the based on the
equation, Q = C*V, the charges of the two objects will also be the same because the
voltage of the two objects will be equivalent.

3. Although the electric field is tangent to electric lines, free charged particles to not
necessarily move along the field lines. Because the electric field is related to force and
force is related to acceleration, if a random point were chosen on the electric field, then
the direction that a charged particle would accelerate would be known. However, the
charged particle does not move in the same direction that it is accelerating in. For
example, if the electric field points up and the particle is moving sideways, the direction
of the particle will be bent upwards a bit due to the electric field, but it will still be
moving predominantly sideways.