Saturday, February 25, 2012

What are the two laws of static charges?

????What are the two laws of static charges?
1.) Opposite charges attract.

2.) Like charges repel.

3.) Neutral objects are attracted to charged objects.What are the two laws of static charges?
Who says there are only "two"?

This is a terrible question; it shows very little understanding for physics and for the physics of static charges in particular.

Here are several, not two:

Like charges repel.
Unlike charges attract.
Charge force is carried by photons.
Charge force for point charges varies as the strength of the charges and inversely as the square of their separation.
Static charges do not create magnetic fields.
Static charge field between infinite parallel plates varies as the voltage across the plates and inversely as the distance between them.

I suspect there are more. But you get my point. Who says there are only two?

BTW: Neutrally charged objects are neither attracted nor repelled by charged objects. That's why they're called "neutral." What may happen, but not necessarily, is that a neutrally charged object will become charged under the influence of some charged object.

For example, a negatively charged balloon, static charge from rubbing it on fur etc., will stick on a wall because the negative charge on the balloon's surface pushes the free electrons in the wall away. That leaves the wall with a positive charge where it was neutral to start with.

But those wall electrons have to have somewhere to go. If they do not, that section of wall will not go positive and that balloon will not stick to it because the wall remains neutral.

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