Electric Field and Potential
Pre-Lab Questions
How are electric potential and electric field similar? How are they different?
Draw the equipotential lines for a single, positive, charge.
If you were to walk on an equipotential line, how would your electric potential change over time?
What does it mean when equipotential lines are closer together? What does it mean when they are farther apart?
What direction do electric fields travel?
How can you tell from an electric field map whether an electric field is strong or weak?
What would the electric field lines look like if the electric field was constant?
Can there be a point in space where there is an electric potential but not electric field? Can there be a point in space where there is an electric field but no electric potential? Explain you answer.
Use Figure 5 to answer the following questions:
Physics-image38
Figure 5: Charged particles P and Q.
a. Are charges P and Q negative or positive? How do you know?
b. Which particle has the highest magnitude of charge? How do you know?
Given the two field maps below, if the left charge (blue rectangle or circle) is positive and the right charge is negative, predict the electric field lines by drawing them over the field maps.
Physics-image42a
Physics-image42b
Experiment 1: Mapping electric potentials
Post-Lab Questions
a.
b.
1. Use the data collected to draw your equipotential lines on Figures 9a and 9b. Label what potential each equipotential line represents.
Add electric field lines to the Figure 9 field maps. Dont forget that electric fields are vectors and need to have a direction! Hint : Use a different colored writing utensil to help make the distinction between the equipotential lines and the electric field lines.
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