Electrostatics grade 10

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Everything Science www.everythingscience.co.za
16. Electrostatics
Physics: Electricity and magnetism
Grade 10

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Two types of charge
All objects surrounding us (including people!) contain large amounts of electric charge.
There are two types of electric charge: positive charge and negative charge.
Positive charge is carried by protons in the nucleus. Negative charge is carried by electrons.
Objects can be positively charged, negatively charged or neutral.
Objects that are neutral have equal numbers of positive and negative charge.
Objects can change their charge by contact or by rubbing: neutral objects can become
either positively charged or negatively charged.

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Forces between charges and charge conservation
Unlike charges are attracted to each other and like charges are repelled from each other.
The principle of conservation of charge states that the net charge of an isolated system
remains constant during any physical process, e.g. two charged objects making contacting
and separating.
When two identical conducting spheres on insulating stands are allowed to touch they share
the charge evenly between them. We can calculate the resulting charge using:
Q=
Q1+Q2
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Q=nqe
Conductors and insulators
Conductors allow charge to move through them easily.
Insulators do not allow charge to move through them easily.
Quantisation of charge
Charge is measured in coulombs (C).
Charge is quantised in units of the charge of an electron: 1,6 × 10−19
C. We can use the
following equation to calculate charge:

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For more practice or to ask an expert for help on this
section see:
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Electrostatics grade 10

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Electrostatics grade 10