Question

A negative charge of 20 x 10-6C and another charge of 15 x 10-6C are separated by as distance of 0.7 m.

Answer 1

Answer:

Approximately $5.5\; \rm N$, assuming that the volume of these two charged objects is negligible.

Explanation:

Assume that the dimensions of these two charged objects is much smaller than the distance between them. Hence, Coulomb's Law would give a good estimate of the electrostatic force between these two objects regardless of their exact shapes.

Let $q_1$ and $q_2$ denote the magnitude of two point charges (where the volume of both charged object is negligible.) In this question, $q_1 = 20 \times 10^{-6}\; \rm C$  and $q_2 = 15 \times 10^{-6}\; \rm C$.

Let $r$ denote the distance between these two point charges. In this question, $r = 0.7\; \rm m$.

Let $k$ denote the Coulomb constant. In standard units, $k \approx 8.98755\times 10^{9}\; \rm kg \cdot m^{3}\cdot s^{-2}\cdot C^{-2}$.

By Coulomb's Law, the magnitude of electrostatic force (electric force) between these two point charges would be:

$\begin{aligned}F &= \frac{k \cdot q_1 \cdot q_2}{r^{2}}\end{aligned}$.

Substitute in the values and evaluate:

$\begin{aligned}F &= \frac{k \cdot q_1 \cdot q_2}{r^{2}}\\ &\approx 8.98755 \times 10^{9}\; \rm kg \cdot m^{3}\cdot s^{-2}\cdot C^{-2} \\ &\quad \times 20\times 10^{-6}\; \rm C\\ &\quad \times 15\times 10^{-6}\; \rm C \\ &\quad \times \frac{1}{{(0.7\; \rm m)}^{2}}\\ &\approx 5.5\; \rm N \end{aligned}$.