• Electric potential

Pre-requisite skills: Right-hand rule.

Approximate completion time:  Under an hour.

Provide sufficient detail to verify that the assignment was completed in a meaningful manner.

Applet by Wolfgang Christian

(a)  As the ball accelerates, does it approach a region of higher or lower potential?  (You can use the mouse to display this information.)

(b)  Therefore, what is the polarity (negative or positive) of the charge?   Explain.

(c)  Is the potential energy increasing or decreasing as the particle accelerates?    Why is this expected?  (Hint:  Think of the conservation of energy, or just think about the general behavior of physical systems.)

(d)  In which direction does the electric field point?

2. Using the clock on the upper left of the applet and the mouse to display the coordinates of any location in the applet, calculate

(a) the acceleration of the charged particle,

(b) the force acting on the particle,

(c)  the electric field strength.

Helpful Resources

1. Electric Charges, Fields, and Potentials by Ian Littlewood.
2. The Physics Hypertextbook by Glenn Elert (see Electric Potential)
3. Electric Fields of a System of Charges by Angel Franco Garcia (in Spanish).
4. Book of Phyz - Motion by Dean Baird
5. Physlet Problems: Electric Potential by Wolfgang Christian
6. P10D - Electricity and Magnetism by Janak Sodha

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