PHYS 21900 Study Guide - Final Guide: Field Line, Magnetic Monopole, Electric Potential Energy
Document Summary
Electric charge is an intrinsic property of the fundamental particles that every atom is made of, and thus of any object in nature. Electric charge states: negative (electrons, e. g. , positive (protons, etc, neutral (neutrons, etc) The net electric charge is conserved in any physical process. But : charge can be transferred from one object to another, individual charges can also, in fact, be (cid:862)destroyed(cid:863) or (cid:862)created(cid:863), but not net charges. A charge placed in an electric field will experience a force, which will cause an acceleration. We limit our study here to uniform electric fields: where the field is constant everywhere and produces a constant acceleration. A uniform electric field can be created between two parallel conductors. If each plate has an equal, but opposite charge, uniformly distributed, then the electric field between the plates will be nearly uniform. Charges and fields of a conductor: in electrostatic equilibrium, free charges inside a conductor do not move.
