UNIT OVERVIEW

Have you ever wondered why your hair stands up after removing a woolly jersey, or why you sometimes get a small shock when touching a metal door handle? These everyday experiences are governed by electrostatics — the study of stationary electric charges and the forces between them.

The electrostatic force is incredibly powerful — about $10^{36}$ times stronger than gravity! Yet we don't feel it pushing us around because most objects contain equal amounts of positive and negative charge, which cancel out.

By the end of this unit, you will be able to:

• Explain the nature of electric charge and how objects become charged
• Apply Coulomb's Law to calculate the electrostatic force between point charges
• Describe and calculate the electric field around point charges
• Draw and interpret electric field line diagrams
• Apply the superposition principle to solve problems involving multiple charges
• Solve complex problems combining forces and electric fields

Real-Life Applications: