Drill 2

Problem 2
There's a lot of symmetry here. The positive Q charge is centered at (a, 3/4) in polar coordinates, and
the negative charge is centered at (a, /4).
The field due to the +Q charge has magnitude kQ/a^2 and direction -/4 (4th quadrant).
The field due to the -Q charge has the same magnitude, but the direction is +/4.
When you add these components together, the direction is along the +x-axis (Answer b) because the
vertical components cancel out. The magnitude of the field is kQ2 / a^2 (Answer a).

3
First realise that an infinite sheet of charge surface density sigma has a uniform E field (of magnitude
sigma/(2eps0), i.e. independent of the distance from the sheet). Secondly, the superposition principle
applies: if one charge distribution gives rise to a field and another distribution to another field, then the
combination of distributions gives rise to the sum of fields.
For the xy-sheet, the field is along the z direction:
E = sigma/(2eps0) sgn(z) k
The sgn(z) function ( sgn(z) is +1 for positive z and -1 for negative z, i.e. It gives the sign of z) makes sure
the E-field points away from the sheet for positive sigma.
Likewise for the yz-sheet:
E = -sigma/(2eps0) sgn(x) i
Therefore the total field is
E = -sigma/(2eps0) ( sgn(x) i - sgn(z) k