Award Winning Boss Posted April 3, 2013 Report Share Posted April 3, 2013 The law is based on bodies of mass. It states:The force of attraction between two forces is directly proportional to the product of the two masses.The force is also inversely proportional to the square distance between them. So:Putting these two together gives: In order to make them equal we need a constant (which is G. 6.674×10-11 N m2kg-2). The final equation results in: Now, how is this linked to Coulomb's law? Well they're both extremely similar but for charges instead. However please remember that like charges repel and different charges attract. A common mistake is that they'll always attract just because that's what happens between two bodies of mass. So think of the force as the force the charges experience instead of the force of attraction. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yolo Swaggins Posted April 3, 2013 Report Share Posted April 3, 2013 Now, how is this linked to Coulomb's law? Well they're both extremely similar but for charges instead. However please remember that like charges repel and different charges attract. A common mistake is that they'll always attract just because that's what happens between two bodies of mass. So think of the force as the force the charges experience instead of the force of attraction. If I'm not mistaken, I think a better way of conceptualizing this is to see if the electrostatic force is positive or negative. Opposite charges attract; so if the force is negative, it is an attractive force. On the other hand, like charges repel, so if F is positive, it is a repulsive force. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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