Direct vs.

Indirect Play
We have thus far developed ways to find electric fields
from electric charge distributions via the principle of
superposition, by brute-force integration.
Today we will introduce a second method that lets us
find E-fields in special highly symmetric situations. The
explanation will seem roundabout at first.

Observations about angles.

What angle does a short line segment in a plane subtend?
If the line is perpendicular to our line of sight, the angle can
be found this way: take the length of the segment Ds,
divide by the circumference of a circle with radius equal to
the distance of the segment from us, and multiply by 2p to
convert to radians: Dq= 2pDs/2pr=Ds/r.
If Ds is not perpendicular to our line of sight, we should only
consider its perpendicular part. We can modify our formula
to account for this possibility thusly: Dq = Dsnr/r2, where n
is a unit vector perpendicular to r and directed outwards.
nr/r is the cosine of the angle between n and our line of
sight; it picks out the part of Ds that is perpendicular to the
line of site. We could it fact promote the line segment to a
vector by defining Ds = Dsn, so Dq=Dsr/r2.

A fancy way to define an angle

Ds=nDs

Dq=Dsr/r2

n Ds

Solid angle
Just as we can think of a small line segment as
subtending a fraction of all possible directions in a plane,
we can think of small area DA as subtending all possible
directions in space. This motivates the definition of solid
angle: DW=4pDA(nr/r)/4pr2 = DAr/r3.
In other words, DW is the fraction of a sphere of radius r
occupied by the projection of the area DA along our line
of sight located a distance r from us, multiplied by 4p to
convert to the standard measure of solid angle,
steradians.
It follows that if we add up all DW of all directions we get
4p: dW=4p.

Definition of solid angle

DA

DW=DAnr/r3

Solid angle and soccer

Easy shots are ones where the goal occupies a large
solid angle: close, head-on.
Hard shots feature small solid angle: far away, sharp
angles.
Goalies try to cut the solid angle; they spread out, rush
the shooter, etc.

Getting solid with solid angle

Whats the tougher shot?
A. 30 meters, directly in front of the goal.
B. 20 meters, 60 degrees away from head-on with the
goal.
Which subtends a larger solid angle in the sky?
A. The sun.
B. The moon.
C. They subtend equal solid angle.

Electric Flux
Now lets pull in the electric field. Take E from a point
charge located at the origin and dot it with our new
surface element vector located at any position r. This
defines a small part of a new quantity: the electric field
flux DFE:

Q r dA
Q
DF E

DW
3
4pe 0 r
4pe 0

We see that DFE is Q/4pe0 times the solid angle

subtended by the area. If we make a closed surface and
add up the flux through all the surface elements, this
amounts to integrating the solid angle over all directions,
and we get:

Gausss Law for the Electric Field

qenc
E dA

e0

The electric field flux through any closed surface

equals the electric charge enclosed by the surface.
If a surface encloses no charge, the FE=0 through the
surface.
The integral with the circle through it reminds us that the
integral is to be done only on closed surfaces.
Gausss Law works because, through a fixed solid
angle DW, the area subtended by DW grows as r2 while
the field pointing into DW shrinks as 1/r2.

Electric flux test

Which is larger?
A. The flux through a 10 cm diameter balloon enclosing 1
proton.
B. The flux through a 20 cm diameter balloon enclosing 2
protons.
Which is larger?
A. The flux through a 10 cm diameter balloon enclosing 1
proton.
B. The flux through a 10 cm diameter balloon caused by
100 protons immediately outside the balloon.

E produced by a uniformly charged sphere

Lets see what G.L. is good for. Consider a uniformly
charged sphere of radius R. What is E due to this field
everywhere in space?
First observe that symmetry requires:
That E be directed radially outward or inward.
That |E| only depends on radius, and not direction.
Suppose then that we enclose the charged sphere with a
large imaginary sphere of radius r>R. The flux through
this sphere will be

2
E dA Er dA 4pr Er

Uniformly charged sphere II

This implies the simple by highly non-obvious result that
the E-field produced by a charged sphere outside of the
sphere is that same as if all the spheres charge were
placed at a point in the center: E(r>R) = Q/4pe0r2
Well next work out the result on the board for the E-field
inside the sphere: E(r<R) = Qr/4pe0R3.
Inside the sphere the field linearly increases from zero at
r=0 to Q/4pe0R2 on the outer surface.
For r>R the field is the same as a point charge and falls
off as 1/r2.

A hollow sphere
Suppose a charge Q is uniformly spread over a thin
hollow spherical shell of radius R. What is E
everywhere.
For our spherical geometry, we find once more that
FE=4pr2E(r).
For r>R, the charge enclosed is Q, so for r>R, we once
again get a point charge-like formula: E(r>R)=Q/4pe0r2.
For r<R, the enclosed charge is 0, so E(r<R)=0!

A long uniformly charged wire of radius R

In this case the symmetry is cylindrical. The field must
point away from the wire and its magnitude can only
depend on the distance from the wire.
Because the wire is very long, it is only sensible to
specify the charge/length l.
We choose a cylinder of radius r and length L for our
Gaussian surface. No flux goes through the cylinder
ends, so for the long cylindrical geometry, FE=2prLE(r).
For r>R, the enclosed charge is q=lL. For r<R,
q=r2lL/R2.
Then Gauss tells us that E(r>R)=l/2e0r, and
E(r<R)=lr/2e0R2.