electric fields

Electric Fields

Play around with the applets, so you can investigate electric field lines.  Recall the sign convention:

Field lines point away from positive charges
Field lines point toward negative charges

With this in mind, draw field diagrams for some/all of the scenarios described below, as well as some of your own:

•    Single positive charge
•    Single negative charge
•    One negative and one positive charge (equal magnitude of charge)
•    Two negative charges and/or two positive charges
•    One negative and one positive charge (unequal charges) – try a couple different configurations, with at least one attempt having very different magnitude than the other
•    Multiple charges in weird configurations – go for broke here, and make several drawings (at least five)

The applets below may prove useful – or at least cool to play around with.  Also feel free to do a Google search for ‘E-field’ and ‘applet’.  This should prove fruitful.

Also, don’t confuse E-field lines with Equipotential lines (lines of constant electric potential, or voltage).  Some applets will display both if desired.


http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~phys1/java/phys1/EField/EField.html

http://falstad.com/vector2de/
http://falstad.com/vector3de/

http://www.cbu.edu/~jvarrian/applets/efield1/elefi_z.htm

http://www.colorado.edu/physics/phys1120/phys1120_sp99/Applets/Efield.html
(This is useful for seeing the field vectors at work.)