COULOMB’S LAW

CHARLES-AUGUSTIN DE COULOMB

• French physicist best known for the formulation

of Coulomb’s law
• Coulomb spent nine years in the West Indies as a
military engineer and returned to France with
impaired health.
• Coulomb developed his law as an outgrowth of his
attempt to investigate the law of electrical
repulsions
 A LAW STATING THAT LIKE
CHARGES REPEL AND OPPOSITE
CHARGES ATTRACT, WITH A FORCE
PROPORTIONAL TO THE PRODUCT
OF THE CHARGES AND INVERSELY
PROPORTIONAL TO THE SQUARE
OF THE DISTANCE BETWEEN THEM.
 FORCE AS A VECTOR QUANTITY

• The electrical force, like all forces, is

typically expressed using the unit Newton.
• Being a force, the strength of the electrical
interaction is a vector quantity that has
both magnitude and direction.
COULOMB'S LAW STATES THAT THE
ELECTRICAL FORCE BETWEEN TWO
CHARGED OBJECTS IS DIRECTLY
PROPORTIONAL TO THE PRODUCT
OF THE QUANTITY OF CHARGE ON
THE OBJECTS AND INVERSELY
PROPORTIONAL TO THE SQUARE
OF THE SEPARATION DISTANCE
BETWEEN THE TWO OBJECTS.
Where:
q1= quantity of charge on object 1
q2= quantity of charge on object 2
d= Distance of separation between the two
objects
k= Coulomb's law constant
In the case of air, the value is approximately
9.0 x 109 N • m2 / C2.
 STEPS

• Identify and list known information in variable form.

• List the unknown (or desired) information in variable form
• Formulate the working formula
• Solve

Note:
Convert units to the accepted ones.
 SUPPOSE THAT TWO POINT
CHARGES, EACH WITH A CHARGE
OF +1.00 COULOMB ARE
SEPARATED BY A DISTANCE OF 1.00
METER. DETERMINE THE
MAGNITUDE OF THE ELECTRICAL
FORCE OF REPULSION BETWEEN
THEM.
 SAMPLE PROBLEM

•Calculate the force between

two point charges of 22µC
and -18µC, separated by a
distance of 30cm.
 SAMPLE PROBLEM

•The force on two positive

charges of magnitude 6µC and
24µC is 100N. What is the
distance between the two
charges in cm?
• A force of 500 N exists between
two identical point charges
separated by a distance of 40cm.
Calculate the magnitude of the two
point charges.
• Two balloons are charged with an
identical quantity and type of charge: -
6.25 nC. They are held apart at a
separation distance of 61.7 cm.
Determine the magnitude of the
electrical force of repulsion between
them.
 SAMPLE PROBLEM

• Two balloons with charges of +3.37

µC and -8.21 µC attract each
other with a force of 0.0626
Newton. Determine the separation
distance between the two balloons.
 HOW TO IDENTIFY THE NUMBER OF
ELECTRONS IN A COULOMB

•1 electron= -1.602x10-19 C
• How many electrons represent a
charge of -70µC
 FINDING ONE OF THE MAGNITUDES

• An attractive force of 1500N exist

between a +900nC charge and another
charge. The two charges are separated
by 50mm. What is the magnitude and
sign of the other charge?