• Motion of a charged particle in electric fields

Pre-requisite skills:  Basic understanding of kinematics and the electric field.

Approximate completion time:  Under an hour.

Applet by Wolfgang Christian

(a) Describe the acceleration of the charged particle in the two regions of space (inside and outside the electric field region).

(b)  Describe the analogy between the motion of the charged particle inside the electric field region and projectile motion.  Why are they the same?

2.  This applet displays data about the position of the particle at all points in its trajectory.

(a)  Using the data display and the clock, determine the initial speed of the particle before it enters the electric field region.

(b)  By examing the maximum distance the particle travels to the right, calculate the strength of the electric field.  (Assume the particle has a charge of q = +1 nC.)

(c) Given your previous calculation for the electric field strength, at what point should the particle exit the electric field region at the top of the screen?

(d)  At what speed should the particle exit the electric field region?

Helpful Resources

1. The Book of Phyz - Electrostatics by Dean Baird.
2. The Physics Hypertextbook by Glenn Elert
3. Electromagnetism Applets by Angel Franco Garcia (in Spanish).
4. Electric Field (Physics) by Sadahisa Kamikawa.
5. The Electric Force by Physics 2000
6. Electric and Magnetic Interactions:  The Movies by Ruth Chabay
7. Electric Fields by Angel Franco Garcia (in Spanish)
8. Electric Charges in Java by Sebastian Rodriguez.
9. P10D - Electricity and Magnetism by Janak Sodha

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