Now you understand how scuffing along a carpet in socks builds up electrons on the body, and how this negative electric charge affects other things (like your cat) when you reach a finger out to touch them. You also know how opposite charges attract and like charges repel, and the difference between balanced charges and unbalanced charges.
We’re going to dive into studying force fields. You may wonder what force fields have to do with a serious examination of physics like the one in this lesson. You probably consider force fields to be something you might hear about in a science fiction scene such as…
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Energy is “N/C”, and force is measured in “N”. The problem in the video shows how to find energy by dividing the force in N by the charge in C. The FBD in the problem shows force “F” opposed by the gravitational force “mg”. Does that help?
We were wondering … Why isn’t the force that opposes gravity in this problem (i.e., the electric force) expressed in Newtons? Since mg is in Newtons, having it opposed by a force with units of N/C (Newtons per Coulomb) seemed odd.