Science desk
< October 22	<< Sep \| October \| Nov >>	Current desk >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Science Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

October 23[edit]

Movement of electric charges in an electrostatic field or potential[edit]

(I'm posting this for an anon user who can't because of the current block. --RDBury (talk) 00:22, 23 October 2018 (UTC))[reply]

What type of movement of electric charges, used for defining the electrostatic field and its circulation, can occur in an electrostatic potential, where charges are supposed not to move?--82.137.8.89 (talk) 19:58, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Is this movement of electric charges a sort of a quasistatic process? Can it be called electrostatic currrent?--82.137.11.66 (talk) 20:19, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

If charges literally cannot move at all, they cannot contribute to changes in an electric field. However, you may be thinking of the concept of displacement current. This is indeed a movement of charge, but not necessarily a gross movement of particles. The common example is the polarization of dielectric in a capacitor. Someguy1221 (talk) 00:49, 23 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]