Physics: Coulomb's Law

Objectives

• Students will explore the force two charges exert on each other.
• Students will observe how the force depends upon the magnitude of the two charges and the distance separating them.
• Students will develop the equation for Coulomb’s law using their observations.

Vocabulary

• attract
• charge
• Coulomb (used as a unit)
• distance
• force
• inverse square
• magnitude
• Newton (used as a unit)
• ratio of forces
• repel

About the Lesson

This lesson has students explore Coulomb’s law by manipulating the magnitude of two charges and the distance separating them.
As a result, students will:

• Observe that charges with like signs repel and charges with opposite signs attract.
• Relate the magnitude of the force the charges exert on each other to the product of the two charges and to the inverse square of the distance separating them.
• Develop the equation for Coulomb’s law.

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