Electric charges. It was know to the ancient greeks as far back as 600 B.C.

that amber, rubbed with wool,

acquired the property of attracting light objects. In describing this property today, wa say that amber is
electrified, or possesses as electric charge, or is electically charged. These terms ase derived from greek
word elektro, meaning amber. It is possible to impart an electric charge to any solid material by rubbing
it with any other material. Thus, an automobile becomes charged by virtue of its motion through the air;
an electric charge is developed on a sheet of paper moving thourgh a printing press; a comb is electrified
in passing thourgh dry hair. Actually, intimate contact is all that is needed to give rise to an electric
charge. Rubbing merely servers to bring many points of the surfaces into good contact.

In lecture demonstrations hard rubber and fur are commonly used. If, after it is rubbed with fur, a rubber
rod is placed in a dish containing tiny pieces of tissue paper, many of these will at first cling to rod, but
after a few second they will fly off. The intial attraction will be explaian in chapter 27; the subsequent
repulsion is due to a force that is found to exist whenever two bodies are electrified in the same way.
Suppose two small, very light pith balls are suspended near each other by fine silk threads. At first they
will be attracted to an electrified rubber rod and will cling to it. A moment later, they will be repelled by
the rubber and will also repel each other.

A similar experiment performed with glass rod that has been rubbed with silk gives rise to same result.
Pith balls electrified by contact with such a glass rod are repelled not only by the glass rod but by each
other. On the other hand, a pith ball that has been in conctact with electrified glass, is found to be
attracted. We are therefore led to conclusion that there are two kinds of electric charge-that possessed
by hard rubber after being rubbed with fur, called negative charge, and that possessed by glass after
being rubbed with silk, called a positif charge. The words negative and positive are merely convenient
labels, having no mathematical connotations whatever. As matter of fact, as we shall see presently, a
negatively charged body has acquired something extra, whereas a positively charge body has lost some
of the same thing.

The experiments on pith balls described in the preceding paragraph lead to fundamental results that (1)
like charges repel, (2) unlike charges attract.

These repulsive or attractive forces, of electrical orgin, exist in addition to the gravitational force of
attracton and, in most situations with which we shall deal, are so much larger than the gravitational force
that the latter may be completely neglected.

Suppose a rubber rod is rubbed with fur and then touched to a supended pith ball. Both the rubber and
the pith ball are negatively charged. If the fur is now brought near the pith ball, the ball will be attracted
indicating that the fur is positively charged. It follows that when rubber is rubbed with fur, oppsite
charges appear on the two materials. This found to happen whenever any substance is rubbed with any
other substance. Thus glass becomes positive, while the silk with which the glass was rubbed becomd
negative. This suggests strongly that electric charges are not generated or created, but that process of
acquiring an electric charge consists of transferring something from one body to another, so that one
body has an excess and the other a deficiency of that something. It was not until the end of the
nineteenth century that this “something” was found to consist of very small, light pieces of negative
electricity, known today as electrons.

Electrons are one of fundamental constituents of matter. Once the electrical structure of atoms is made
clear, electrical phenomena are much easier to understand. Consequently, instead of adopting a
historical point of view from now on, we shall first study atomic structure and use then use thing
knowledge in introducing further electrical effects.

Atomic structure. The word atom is derived from the greek atoms, meaning indivisible. It is scarcely
necessary to point out that the term is inappropriate. All atom are more or less complex arrangements of
subatomic particles, and there are many methods of splitting off some of these particles, either singly or
in groups. The most spectacular example, of course, is the dispruption of an atomic nucleus in the
process of nuclear fission.

The subatomic particles, the building blocks out of which atoms are constructed, are of three different
kinds: the negatively charged electron, the positively charged proton, and the neutral neutron. The
negative charge of the electron is of the same magnitude as the positive charge of the proton and no
charges of smaller magnitude have ever been obseverd. The charge of the proton or an electron is the
ultimate, natural unit of charge.

The subatomic praticles are arranged in the same general way in all atoms. The proton and neutrons
always from a closely packed group called the nucleus, which has a net positive charge due to the
protons. The diameter of nucleus, if we think of it as a sphere, is of the order of 10 -12 cm. Outside the
nucleus, but at relatively large distances from it, are the electrons, whose number is equal to the number
of protons with in the nucleus. If the atom is undisturbed, and no electrons are removed from the space
around the nucleus, the atom as a whole is electrically neutral. If, no the other hand, one or more
electrons have been removed, the remaining positively charged structure is called a positive ion. A
negative ion is an atom which has gained one or more extra electrons. The process of losing or gaining
electrons is called ionization.

In the atomic model proposed by the Danish physicist Niels Bohr in 1913, the electron were picture as
whirling about the nucleus in circular or elliptical orbits. We now belive the model is not entirely correct,
but it is still useful in visualizing the structure of an atom. The diamteres of the electronic orbit, which
determine the size of an atom as whole, are of the order of 2 or 3 X 10 -8 cm, or about ten thousand times
as great as the diameter of the nucleus. A bohr atom is solar system in miniature, with electrical forces
taking the place of gravitational forces. The positively charged central nucleus corresponds to he sun,
while the electrons, moving around the nucleus under the electrical force of is attraction for them,
correspond to the planets moving around the sun under the influence of its gravitational attraction.

The masses of a proton and a neutron are nearly equal, and the mass of each is about 1840 times as
great as that of an electron. Practically all the mass of an atom, therefore, is concentrated in its nucleus.
Since one mole of monatatomic hydrogen consists of 6.02 X 10 23 particles ( avogadro’s number ) and its
mass 1.008 gm, the mass of single hydrogen atom is 1.67 X 10 -24 gm.

The hydrogen atom is the sole exception to the rule that all atoms are constructed of there kinds of
subatomic particles. The nucleus of a hydrogen atom is as single proton, outside of which there is a
single electron. Hence out the total mass of the hydrogen atom 1/1840 part is the mass the electron and
the reaminder is the mass of a proton. Then to three significant figures, mass of electron 9.11 X 10 -28 gm,
mass of proton 1.67 X 10-24 gm, and since the masses of proton and neutron are nearly equal, mass
neutron 1.67 X 10-24 gm.
The next element beyond hydrogen is helium. Its nucleus consists of two proton and two neutons, and it
has two extranuclear electron. When these two electron are absent, the doubly charged helium ion,
which is the helium nucleus itself, is often called an alpha particle, or ∝ -particle. The next element,
lithium, has there protons in its nucleus and has thus anuclear charge of three units. In the un-ionized
state the lithium atom has three extranuclear electrons. Each element has a different number of nuclear
protons and therefore a different positive nuclear charge. In the table of elements listed in the back of
this book, know as the periodic table, each element occupies a box with which is associated a number,
called the atomic number. The atomic number represents the number of nuclear protons or in the
undisturbed state, the number of extranuclear electrons.

In addition to the forces of attaraction or repulsion between protons and electrons, which depend only
on the separation of the particles, other forces are found to exist between them which depend on their
relative motion. It is these forces which are responsible for magnetic phenomena. For many years, the
apparent force of repulsion or attraction between a pair of bar magnets was explained on the theory
that there existed magnetic entities similar to electric charges and called “ magnetic poles ”. It is a
familiar fact, however, that magnetic effects are also observed around a wire in which there is a current.
But a current is simply a motion of electic charge, and it appears now that all magnetic effects come
about as result of the relative motion of electric charges. Hence magnetism and electricity are not two
separate subject, but are related phenomena arising from the properties of electri charges.

Charging by contact.

Charging by metal by induction.

Coulomb’s law. The firtst quantitative investigation of the law of force between charged bodies was
carried out by Charles Augustin de Coumlomb in 1748, utilizing for the measurement of the forces a
torsion balance of the type employed 13 years later by Cavendish in measuring gravitational forces.
Coumlomb found that the force of attraction or repulsion between two “ point charges,” that is, charged
bodies whose dimensions are small compared with the distance r between them, is inversely propotional
to the square of the distance.

The force also depends on the quantity of charge on each body. The net charge of a body might be
described by a statement of the excess number of electrons or protons in the body. In practice, however,
the charge of a body is expressed in terms of a unit much larger than the charge of an individual electron
or proton. We shall use the letter q or Q to represent the definition of unit charge.

The concept of quantity of charge was not clearly appreciated in coulomb’s time and no unit of charge or
method of measuring it had been devised. Thus, although coulomb did not state his conclusions in this
form, his experiments showed that the force between two point charges q and q’ is proportional to the
product of these charges. The complete expression for the force between two point charges is therefore.

qq ' qq '
Fα 2 or F=k 2
r r
Where k is a proportionality constant whose magnitude depends on the units in which F, q, q’ and r are
expressed. Equations ( diatas ) is the mathematical statement of what is known today as coulomb’s law :
the force of attraction or repulsion between two point charges is directly proportional to the product of
the charges and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.

The best verification of coulomb’s law lies in the correctness of many conclusions which have been
drawn from it, rather than on direct experiments with point charges which cannot be made with high
precision.

If there is matter in the space between the charges, the net force acting on each is altered because
charges are “ induced “ in the molecules of the intervening medium. This effect will be described later
on. As a pratical matter, the law can be used as it stands for point charges in air, since even at
atmospheric pressure the effect of the air is to alter the force from its value in vacuum by only about one
part in two thousand.

The same law of force holds whatever may be the sign of the charges q and q’. if the charges are of like
sign the force is repulsion, if the charges are of opposite sign the force is repulsion, if the chargers are of
opposite sign the force is an attraction. Forces of the same magnitude, but in opposite directions, are
exerted on each of the charges.

Rutherford’s nuclear atom.

System unit.