PHYSICS

Electricity: comes from the Greek word elecktron

which means amber.

● In about 600BC, Thales of Miletus discovered

that when amber was rubbed with fur, it
attracted light objects.
● Sir William Gilbert, English physicist, found
that many substances behaved like amber.
● Charles Coulomb -> Coulomb’s Law
● Alessandro Volta -> electric battery
● Andre Marie Ampere -> magnetic field
produced by currents
Methods of making a charged body
● Georg Simon Ohm -> Ohm’s Law
● J.J Thomson -> discovered electron 1) By Friction -> rubbing one material against another

Branches of Electricity 2) By Contact / Conduction-> contact occurs between

charged object and neutral object./ two objects with
1)Electrodynamics same charge.

● Current electricity 3) By Induction -> a process by which an electrically

● study of relations between electric, magnetic
and mechanical phenomena when charges
are in motion
2)Electrostatics
● Static electricity
● study of the interactions that occur when
electric charges are at rest
Electric Charge- is a physical property of an object
that causes attraction or repulsion
● Positive Charge- proton
● Negative Charge- electron
# of protons = # of electrons zero net charge
# of protons < # of electrons net negative charge
# of protons > # of electrons net positive charge
Ions- electrically charged atoms
First Law of Electrostatics
⮚ “Like charges repel, unlike charges attract.”
charged object brought near a neutral object creates
a charge in that object
4)By Grounding
Classification of Materials according to Flow of
Charges:
1) Conductors -> materials that allow electrons
to pass through them (usually metals)
Ex. Silver, Iron, Copper, Aluminum
2) Insulators -> materials that hinder the flow of
electrons
Ex. rubber, glass, silk, porcelain
3) Semi-Conductors -> materials considered
neither good conductors nor good insulators
Ex. Germanium, silicon
Coulomb’s Law
⮚ Charles Augistine de Coulomb (1736 - 1806),
a French physicist
⮚ He was the first to propose a formula to
calculate electrostatic force

Law of Conservation of Charge

⮚ “In any process, the total number of positive

and negative charges does not change.”
Electrostatic Force/ Coulomb Force

⮚ defined as the amount and direction of attraction

or repulsion between two charged bodies
⮚ a vector quantity
⮚ unit: Newton (N)

Coulomb’s Law

“The force exerted by two charged objects on one

another is proportional to the product of the
magnitude of their charges and inversely
proportional to the square of the distance between
them.”

Electric Field

● a region of space in which an electric

charge will experience a force when
placed in it
● electric force per unit charge ; vector
quantity

*electric field depends only on the charge (q)

and the distance (r) ; it is completely
independent of the test charge

Electric Potential

● The electric potential at a point is the

work per unit charge required to bring a
positive test charge from a point of zero
potential to the point in question.
● potential energy per unit charge