Electric Field in a Polygon

Electricity and Magnetism Level 1

$4$ particles each having a charge $1$ $C$ , are placed on the four vertices of a regular pentagon. The distance of each corner from the centre is $1$ $m$ .

Find the electric field at the centre of the pentagon.

\frac{1}{4\pi\epsilon_{o}}

\frac{2\sqrt2}{4\pi\epsilon_{o}}

\frac{4}{4\pi\epsilon_{o}}

1 solution

Steven Chase
Mar 4, 2018

The arrangement can be viewed as a superposition of:

1) Five positive charges (one at each vertex)
2) An additional negative charge at one of the vertices

The contributions from the five positive charges all cancel out. And it is trivial to find the contribution from the single negative charge from there.

Electric Field in a Polygon

1 solution

0 pending reports