Course: Physic II

University of Djibouti
College of Engineering
Class: ING 3

Chapter 03: Electric Potential

Hamda Abdi Atteyeh

Falll 2023
 INTRODUCTION

Work
In science, work is defined as the action that results when a
force causes an object to move in the direction of the force. B

We defined the work done by a force F, on an object, which

moves along a path from an initial position “a” to a final position
“b” , as the integral of the component of the force tangent to the Wa-b
A
path with respect to the displacement of the object,
 Conservative Forces

Conservative force is the force required to move a particle

from one point to another irrespective of the nature of the

path taken by it.

The electrostatic force are path independent, they only

depends upon initial and final position, not on the path

taken by charge.

The net work done by a conservative force on a particle

moving between two points does not depend on the path

taken by the particle.

The important point is that the work of conservative force

(ex: Electrostatic force) depends only on the initial and final

positions characteristics.
 Potential Energy

For conservative forces we introduce a

definition of potential energy U.

The change in potential energy of an particle is

being defined as being equal to the negative of
the work done by conservative forces on the
particle.
 Electrical potential

The potential energy per unit charge at a point in an electric field is

called the electric potential V (or simply the potential) at that point.
This is a scalar quantity. Thus,

0 0 0 0

If we set Ui as our reference potential energy with Ui=0, then the

electric potential V will be zero there. That point may be the ground,
a point at infinity, or anywhere else with zero characteristics.
Therefore, the electric potential at any point in an electric field can
be defined to be:
 Electrical potential

Therefore, the electric potential at any point in an

electric field can be defined to be

Here W∞ is the work done by the electric field on a

charged particle as that particle moves in from
infinity to point f.
POTENTIAL DIFFERENCE IN A UNIFORM
ELECTRIC FIELD

If we set potential Vi =0, then

ELECTRIC POTENTIAL DUE TO A POINT CHARGE
Consider a negative charge “q” kept fixed at the origin which produces an inward
electric field around it. Let P be a point at distance “R” from the charge “q”. A
positive charge “q0” subjected to the electric field, move from infinity to ”P”.
This is shown in Figure 1:
ds
The electric potential difference: E

Vi =0 (at ∞) and Vf =V (at R):

 Equipential lines

Equipential refers to a region in space where every point is at the same potential (V).
Equipotential lines are lines connecting points of the same electric potential. All electric field
lines cross all equipotential lines perpendicularly.
POTENTIAL ENERGY

The electric potential at the point P is:

The electric potential energy difference can be written as U = q.V

U = q .V= 0
OBTAINING THE VALUE OF THE ELECTRIC
FIELD FROM THE ELECTRIC POTENTIAL

The electric field is equal to the derivative of

electric potential over the the displacement of the
particle:
Therefore, using the cartesian component, the
electric field components are defined as:

This allows us to define the “grad” or “del” vector

operator, which allows us to compute the gradient
in one step.
Using the vector operator electric field from the
potential is