PHYS 205 Lab Manual

Experiment 1  Coulomb's Law


Theory

In the textbook (Section 23.3) it is stated that "the magnitude of the electric force ... between two point charges is given by Coulomb's law, \begin{equation} F_e = k_e\, \frac{|q_1|\, |q_2|}{r^2} \end{equation} where $k_e$ is a constant called the Coulomb constant." In this equation, $q_1$ and $q_2$ are the values of the two charges and $r$ is the distance between them.

Assume that the equation above is still a theory and perform an experiment, as suggested in the procedure, to test its validity.

Reading Assignment

Read (or review) the following sections from Chapter 23 in the textbook
➤ Procedure