Two like-charged balloons, placed at a distance of .5 meters, experience a repulsive force of .32 N. What is the force if the distance between the two balloons is doubled?
If you use Coulomb's Law, the equation used to find .32 N was Force = the constant of K multiplied by the product of the charges divided by the square of the distance. Therefore, I think to solve this, you need to double r, which would mean that force is one-fourth of what it originally was. Following that, I think you divide .32 N by 4 and the answer would be .08 N.
Please let me know if this is correct.
Thank you very much!
=)
Your help is very much appreciated!
correct.
xcxzc
Yes, you are absolutely correct! To solve this problem, you can use Coulomb's Law, which states that the force between two charged objects is directly proportional to the product of their charges and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.
So, the equation is:
Force = (K * q1 * q2) / r^2
where
- Force is the repulsive force between the two objects (in Newtons, N)
- K is Coulomb's constant (approximately 9 x 10^9 N m^2/C^2)
- q1 and q2 are the charges of the balloons (assumed to be the same in this case)
- r is the distance between the centers of the balloons (in meters)
The first step is to solve Coulomb's Law for the constant product of K * q1 * q2. We can rewrite the equation as:
K * q1 * q2 = Force * r^2
Now we can calculate this quantity by substituting the given values into the equation:
K * q1 * q2 = 0.32 N * (0.5 m)^2
Next, we need to determine the value of K * q1 * q2 before doubling the distance.
Then, we can double the distance between the balloons to 1 meter. Since the force is inversely proportional to the square of the distance, doubling the distance will result in a force that is one-fourth of the original force. Therefore, the new force can be calculated as:
New Force = (Original Force) / 4 = 0.32 N / 4 = 0.08 N
So, your answer of 0.08 N is correct! Well done!