Electricity and Magnetism Physics 208 Dr. Tatiana Erukhimova Lectures 15,16

Equilibrium in electrostatic field: Earnshaw’s theorem There are NO points of stable equilibrium in any electrostatic field! How to prove it? Gauss’s Law will help! Imaginary surface surrounding P P If the equilibrium is to be a stable one, we require that if we move the charge away from P in any direction, there should be a restoring force directed opposite to the displacement. The electric field at all nearby points must be pointing inward – toward the point P. But that is in violation of Gauss’ law if there is no charge at P.

Thomson’s atom 1899 If charges cannot be held stably, there cannot be matter made up of static point charges (electrons and protons) governed only by the laws of electrostatics. Such a static configuration would collapse!

Hw quiz An infinitesimally thin, insulating, uniformly charged horizontal sheet has a small charged object “floating” above it. If the object has mass m and charge Q, find σ, the charge per unit area on the sheet. Assume the sheet is of infinite extent.

There is a conducting spherical shell, inner radius A and outer radius B. A charge Q1 is put at the center. If you now put charge -2Q1 on the shell, find the charge density everywhere. A sphere of radius A has a charge Q uniformly spread throughout its volume. Find the difference in the electric potential, in other words, the voltage difference, between the center and a point 2A from the center.

Capacitors Consider two large metal plates which are parallel to each other and separated by a distance small compared with their width. Area A L The field between plates is

The capacitance is:

Cylindrical Capacitor

Capacitors in series: Capacitors in parallel:

If you reduce the amount of charge on a capacitor by a factor of 2, how does the capacitance change? If a 4-F capacitor and an 8-F capacitor are connected in parallel, which has the larger potential difference across it? Which has the larger charge? A parallel-plate capacitor has a capacitance of 1.0 F. If the plates are 1 mm apart, what is the area of the plates?

Most capacitors have a non-conducting material, or dielectric, between their conducting plates. When we insert an uncharged sheet of dielectric between the plates, experiments show that the potential difference decreases to a smaller value V. When the space between plates is completely filled by the dielectric, the ratio is called dielectric constant.

Smaller, Denser, Cheaper Moore’s Law (1965): every 2 years the number of transistors on a chip is doubled