Ch. 0 .

10 Electric Charge

This chapter is the beginning of the study of electromagnetism. We start with the
concepts in electrostatics which studies the phenomena of charges at rest. Interaction
between charges can be described in terms of electric forces, and the electric fields and its
effect on other charged particles. The electromagnetic force between charged particles is
one fundamental forces of nature. Another way to describe an electrostatic phenomenon is
through the quantities known as potential energy and electric potential as the force
involved is conservative. This concept of electric potential is also important in discussing
electronic circuits and devices such as the capacitor which is a device that stores electric
charge and is used in radios and power supplies.
1 Electric Charge

The ancient Greeks discovered as early as 600

B.C. that after they rubbed amber with wool, the
amber could attract other objects. Today we say
that the amber has acquired a net electric charge or
has become charged. The word “electric” is derived
from the Greek word elektron, meaning amber. You
can charge a comb by running it through your hair,
and you will find that the comb attracts bits of Figure1: “The same charges repel,
paper. The same effect occurs with other rubbed while opposite charges attract.” (Source:
http://www.actucation.com).
materials, such as glass and hard rubber. If we charge
two rubber rods by rubbing them with the piece of
fur, we find that the rods repel each other. Similarly,
if we rub glass rods with silk, the glass rods become
charged and repel each other. But a charged rubber
rod attracts a charged glass rod (Fig. 1);
furthermore, the rubber rod and the fur attract each other, and the glass and the silk
attract each other.

These experiments and many others like them have shown that there are two kinds
of electric charge, which Benjamin Franklin named positive and negative charges. Positive
charges are called protons while negative charges are identified as electrons. The rubber rod
and glass rod experiment demonstrates how charge behave, such that like charges repel one
another and unlike charges attract one another.

1.1 Structure of Matter

When you charge a rod by rubbing it with fur
or silk, there is no visible change in the
appearance of the rod. The changes that cause the
attraction and repulsion happens on an atomic
level, which leads us to the structure of atoms.
The atom has three particles: the negatively
charged electron, the positively charged proton,
and the uncharged neutron. The protons and
neutrons in an atom make up a small, very dense
core called the nucleus. Surrounding the nucleus
are the electrons. The negatively charged electrons
Figure 2: The structure of an atom.
are held within the atom by the attractive electric The particular atom depicted here is
forces exerted on them by the positively charged lithium.
nucleus.

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 The masses of the individual particles, to the precision that they are presently
known are given in Table 1, as well as, the charges of each particle. Note that the
masses of the proton and neutron are nearly equal and are roughly 2000 times the mass
of the electron. Over 99% of the mass of any

atom is concentrated in its nucleus. Like mass, electric charge is an intrinsic property of
protons and electrons. Experiments reveal that the magnitude of the charge on the proton
exactly equals the magnitude of the charge on the electron; the proton carries a charge +e,
and the electron carries a charge
-e. The SI unit for measuring the magnitude of an electric charge is the coulomb (C), and e
has been determined to have the value

e = 1.602x10−19C

The symbol e represents only the magnitude of the charge on a proton or an electron and
does not include the algebraic sign that indicates whether the charge is positive or
negative. The table below show both the masses and the charges of each particle in the atom
along with the corresponding signs for the positive and negative charge.

Particl Mass Charge

e
electro mc = 9.109382151 × e− = −1.602x10−19
n 10−31kg C
proton mp = 1.672621637 × p+ =
10−27kg +1.602x10−19 C
neutro mn = 1.674927211 × n =0C
n 10−27kg

Table 1: Masses and charges of the three particles in an atom.

The number of protons or electrons in a neutral atom of an element is called the atomic
number of the element. If one or more electrons are removed from an atom, what remains is
called a positive ion. A negative ion is an atom that has gained one or more electrons.

When the total number of protons in a macroscopic body equals the total number of
electrons, the total charge is zero and the body as a whole is electrically neutral. To give a
body an excess negative charge, we may either add negative charges to a neutral body or
remove positive charges from that body. Similarly, we can create an excess positive charge by
either adding positive charge or removing negative charge.

Electric Charge is Conserved

An important characteristic of charge is that electric charge is always conserved. Charge
isn’t created when two objects are rubbed together; rather, the objects become charged
because a charge is transferred from one object to another. One object gains a negative
charge while the other loses an equal amount of negative charge and hence is left with a net
positive charge.

Electric Charge is Quantized

In 1909 Robert Millikan, discovered that if an object is charged, its charge is always a
multiple of a fundamental unit of charge, designated by the symbol e. In modern terms, the
charge is said to be quantized, meaning that charge occurs in discrete chunks that can’t be
further subdivided. An object may have a charge of ±e, ±2e, ±3e, and so on, but never a
fractional charge of ±0.5e or ±0.22e.

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1.2 Insulators and Conductors
Electric charge can not only exist on an object, but it can also move through an
object. However, materials differ vastly in their abilities to allow electric charge to move
or be conducted through them. Substances can be classified in terms of their ability to
conduct electric charge.

Conductors permit the easy movement of charge through them, while insulators do not.

Materials that conduct electric charge poorly are known as electrical insulators. Glass and
rubber are insulators. When such materials are charged by rubbing, only the rubbed area
becomes charged, and there is no tendency for the charge to move into other regions of
the material. Insulators, such as the rubber or plastic that coats electrical wiring, prevent
electric charge from going where it is not wanted. In contrast, materials that readily conduct
electric charge are called electrical conductors.

Semiconductors are a third class of materials, and their electrical properties are
somewhere between those of insulators and those of conductors. Silicon and germanium
are well-known semiconductors that are widely used in the fabrication of a variety of
electronic devices.

Charging By Conduction
Consider a negatively charged rubber rod
brought into contact with an insulated neutral
conducting sphere. The excess electrons on the rod
repel electrons on the sphere, creating local positive
charges on the neutral sphere. On contact, some
electrons on the rod are now able to move onto the
sphere, as in Figure 3, neutralizing the positive
charges. When the rod is removed, the sphere is left
with a net negative charge. This process is referred
to as charging by conduction. The object being
charged in such a process (the sphere) is always left
with a charge having the same sign as the object
doing the charging (the rubber rod).

Charging By Induction
An object connected to a conducting wire or
copper pipe buried in the Earth is said to be
grounded. The Earth can be considered an infinite
reservoir for electrons; in effect, it can accept or
supply an unlimited number of electrons. With
this idea in mind, we can understand the charging
of a conductor by induction.

Consider a negatively charged rubber rod

brought near a neutral (uncharged) conducting
sphere that is insulated, so there is no conducting
path to ground (Fig. 4). Initially the sphere is Figure 3: Charging a metallic object by
electrically neutral. When the negatively charged con- duction.
rod is brought close to the sphere, the repulsive
force be- tween the electrons in the rod and those in
the sphere causes
some electrons to move to the side of the sphere farthest away from the rod. The region
of the sphere nearest the negatively charged rod has an excess of positive charge because of
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 the migration of electrons away from that location (Fig. 4a). If a grounded conducting
wire is then connected to the sphere, as in Figure 4b, some of the electrons leave the
sphere and travel to ground. If the wire to ground is then removed and the rubber rod is
also removed from the vicinity of the sphere, the conducting sphere is left with an excess
of induced positive charge (Fig. 4c). Even though the positively charged atomic nuclei
remain fixed, this excess positive charge becomes uniformly distributed over the surface
of the ungrounded sphere because of the repulsive forces among the like charges and the
high mobility of electrons in a metal.

In the process of inducing a charge on the sphere, the charged rubber rod doesn’t lose any
of its negative charge because it never comes in contact with the sphere. Further, the
sphere is left with a charge opposite that of the rubber rod. Charging an object by
induction requires no contact with the object inducing the charge.

Figure 4: Charging a metallic object by induction.