Question

Suppose that you put on a woollen dress and as a result of rubbing, your body as acquired electric
charge.
(a) Assuming that the total charge has distributed evenly on your body, can you use Gauss's law to
determine the quantity of electric charge on your body?
(b) If your answer to part (a) is yes, how will you do it?
If, on the other hand, your answer to part (a) is no? why not? What assumptions/approximation
can you make to employ the Gauss's law for this problem?
(c) Assuming that the electric eld just outside your body N/C, How much charge will be present on your body.

Answer 1

(A) Yes, we can calculate.

(B) If we approximate our body to be cylindrical in shape, then we can use Gauss's law in cylindrical coordinates.

(C) We have given,

As you might konw that, Force in electric field is given as,

So, using Newton's law,

where m is the mass of our body and g is the acceleration due to gravity.

Therefore,

So, we can calculate charge on the body by this equation.

answered by: anonymous