Electric Fields Coursework Example

Student’s name Professor’s name Course Date Electric Fields Objectives To understand the relationship between the contour lines of equal voltage and the electric field created by electrical charges. To understand how electric field line maps show where electric fields are weak or strong. To calculate actual values of electric field from the data from the experiment. Introduction The electric field concept is helpful in determining the force acting on a charged object due to the existence of other charges. The aim of this experiment is to use a voltmeter to quantitatively map out a set of equipotential lines for various charge distributions. An equipotential line links a set of points which the potential difference is a constant value. To set up the two-dimensional charge distributions, a potential difference is applied to a couple of conductors which are connected with a conducting paper. The electric field can then be established from the equipotential lines. By the definition of electrical potential, the electric lines are perpendicular to the equipotential lines. Moreover, the rule is that the electric field lines begin on positive and finish on negative charges. The figure below is an example of Equipotential Lines (solid lines) and Electric Field Lines (dashed lines) (Media1.Britannica.com n.p). In the experiment, the voltmeter will be used to locate various points with the same potential energy on the conducting paper. The points are recorded on white grid paper and are connected to form an equipotential line. A set of equipotential lines are used to create a map electric field on which the variations on the density of the charge on the electrodes can be determined. Materials Power supply (1 each) Digital multi-meter (DMM) (1 each) Electric field experiment board (1 each) Alligator clips (2 each) Electrical lead cables (2 each) Metal pushpins (2 each) Different pre-terminated conducting papers Procedure Exercise 1: Simulating the E...