Electric Charge

19 March 2023 12:04

Electric Charge: Property of subatomic particles that

causes it to experience a force when placed in an electric
and magnetic field.

Like charges repel each other

Unlike charges attract each other

Polarity of Charge: The property which differentiates

the 2 kinds of charge

Unlike charges were termed positive and negative by

Benjamin Franklin since they nullify each others effect
Glass Rod → +ve
Plastic Rod → -ve

Gold Leaf Electroscope: Refer Chapter 1 (Page #3 & #4) NCERT

To electrify a neutral body, we need to add or remove one kind of

charge.
Only the less tightly bound electrons in a material body can be
transferred from it to another by rubbing
A body can be charged positively by losing electrons.
A body can be charged negatively by gaining electrons.
The number of electrons that are transferred is a very small
fraction of the total number of electrons in the material body.

Conductors Insulators
Substances that allow electricity Substances that do not allow
to flow through them easily. electricity to flow through them.
They have electrons that are Electrons that are not free to
comparatively free to move inside move inside the material.
the material.
When some charge is transferred When some charge is put on an
to a conductor, it readily gets insulator, it stays at the same
distributed over the entire place.
surface of the conductor.
Semiconductors: Substance which offer resistance to the movement of
charges which is intermediate between the conductors and insulators.
(Gallium arsenide, Germanium, Silicon)
Earthing: The process in which the instantaneous discharge of the
electricity takes place by transferring charges directly to the earth
through low resistance wire.

Charging by induction: Refer Chapter 1 (Page #6 & #7) NCERT

Properties of Electric Charge

Additivity of Charges: The total charge of a system is the algebraic
sum of all individual charges in the system.
Conservation of Charge: The total charge of an isolated system
remains unchanged with time. Electric charge can transfer from one
body to another, but charge can neither be created nor be destroyed.
Quantization of charge: Total charge (q) of a body is always an integral
multiple of a basic quantum of charge (e)
𝑞 = 𝑛𝑒

Coulomb's Law
The mutual electrostatic force between two point charges is
proportional to the product and inversely proportional to the
square of the distance separating them.

𝑞 𝑞
𝐹∝
𝑟
𝑞 𝑞 1 𝑞 𝑞
𝐹=𝑘 =
𝑟 4𝜋𝜀 𝑟
𝑘 = 9 × 10 𝑁𝑚 𝐶
𝜀 → 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑚𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑒 𝑠𝑝𝑎𝑐𝑒 = 8.854 × 10 𝐶 𝑁 𝑚
𝑞 𝑞 1 𝑞 𝑞
𝐹⃗ = 𝑘 𝑟̂ = 𝑟̂
𝑟 4𝜋𝜀 𝑟

1 Coulomb: The charge that when placed at a distance of 1 m from

another equal and similar charge in vacuum experiences an electrical
force of repulsion of magnitude 9 × 109 N.

The ratio of electric force and gravitational force between a proton and an electron is
𝑘𝑒
= 2.4 × 10
𝐺𝑚 𝑚

Continuous Charge Distribution

Linear Charge Density
Δ𝑄
𝜆=
Δ𝑙
Surface Charge Density
Δ𝑄
𝜎=
Δ𝑆
Volume Charge Density
Δ𝑄
𝜌=
ΔV