Answer:
to the left
Explanation:
The magnitude of the electrostatic force between two charges is given by the following equation:
where:
is the Coulomb's constant
are the magnitude of the two charges
r is the distance between the two charges
Moreover, the force is:
- Attractive if the charges have opposite sign
- Repulsive if the charges have same sign
In this problem, we have:
is the magnitude of charge 1
is the magnitude of charge 2
r = 3 m is the distance between the two charges
Substituting, we find the force on both charges:
Here, the two charges are both positive, so the force is repulsive; since the 2 nC charge is on the left, this means that the force on this charge is to the left (away from the 5 nC charge).