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Gauss Law

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Gauss’s Law

L1.4 Gauss’s Law and Electric Flux


Intended Learning Outcomes:
At the end of the session, you should be able to:

• Determine the amount of charge within a closed surface by examining


the electric field on the surface.

• Calculate the electric field due to a symmetric charge distribution


using Gauss’s law to
How can you measure the charge inside a box without opening it?

(b) Using a test charge outside the box


(a) A box containing an unknown to probe the amount of charge inside
amount of charge the box
The word “flux” comes from a Latin word meaning “flow.”

The electric field on the surface of boxes containing:


Three boxes, each of which encloses a positive point charge.
To summarize, for the special cases of a closed surface in the shape of a rectangular box and charge distributions
made up of point charges or infinite charged sheets, we have found:

1. Whether there is a net outward or inward electric flux through a closed surface depends
on the sign of the enclosed charge.

2. Charges outside the surface do not give a net electric flux through the surface.

3. The net electric flux is directly proportional to the net amount of charge enclosed within the
surface but is otherwise independent of the size of the closed surface.

These observations are a qualitative statement of Gauss’s law.


Flux: Fluid-Flow Analogy

The volume flow rate of fluid through the wire rectangle


Flux of a Uniform Electric Field
“outward electric flux” corresponds to a positive value of
“inward electric flux” corresponds to a negative value of
Example

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