Question

When sugar is poured from the box into the sugar bowl, the rubbing of sugar grains creates a static electric charge that repels the grains, and causes sugar to go flying out in all directions. If each of two grains acquires charge of 3.0 X 10-11 C at a separation of 8.0 X 10-5 m, with what force with they repel each other

Answer 1

Explanation:

In order to calculate the force, we will use the following formula.

                    F = $k \frac{q_{1}q_{2}}{r^{2}}$

where,    $q_{1} = q_{2} = 3.0 \times 10^{-11} C$

                r = $8.0 \times 10^{-5} m$

Therefore, we will put the given values into the above formula as follows.

                 F = $k \frac{q_{1}q_{2}}{r^{2}}$

                    = $9 \times 10^{9} \frac{3 \times 10^{-11} \times 3 \times 10^{-11}}{(8.0 \times 10^{-5})^{2}}$

                    = $1.265 \times 10^{-3}$ N

Thus, we can conclude that the given two grains will repel each other by a force of $1.265 \times 10^{-3}$ N.