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Electrostatics is a branch of physics that studies slow-moving or stationary electric charges. Since classical times , it has been known that some materials, such as amber , attract lightweight particles after rubbing .
Coulomb's inverse-square law, or simply Coulomb's law, is an experimental law [1] of physics that calculates the amount of force between two electrically charged particles at rest. This electric force is conventionally called the electrostatic force or Coulomb force . [ 2 ]
Electric field from positive to negative charges. Gauss's law describes the relationship between an electric field and electric charges: an electric field points away from positive charges and towards negative charges, and the net outflow of the electric field through a closed surface is proportional to the enclosed charge, including bound charge due to polarization of material.
Gauss's law in its integral form is particularly useful when, by symmetry reasons, a closed surface (GS) can be found along which the electric field is uniform. The electric flux is then a simple product of the surface area and the strength of the electric field, and is proportional to the total charge enclosed by the surface.
Static electricity is an imbalance of electric charges within or on the surface of a material. The charge remains until it can move away by an electric current or electrical discharge.
In classical electrostatics, the electrostatic field is a vector quantity expressed as the gradient of the electrostatic potential, which is a scalar quantity denoted by V or occasionally φ, [1] equal to the electric potential energy of any charged particle at any location (measured in joules) divided by the charge of that particle (measured ...
The law of conservation of charge always applies, giving the object from which a negative charge is taken a positive charge of the same magnitude, and vice versa. Even when an object's net charge is zero, the charge can be distributed non-uniformly in the object (e.g., due to an external electromagnetic field , or bound polar molecules).
Informally, the case of a point charge in an arbitrary static electric field is a simple consequence of Gauss's law.For a particle to be in a stable equilibrium, small perturbations ("pushes") on the particle in any direction should not break the equilibrium; the particle should "fall back" to its previous position.