• ryan213
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    2 years ago

    I don’t understand the formula, but I understand Mr. Bean. +1

    • Limitless_screaming
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      222 years ago

      If you have two charges q1 and q2, you can get the force between them F by multiplying them with the coulomb constant K (approximately 9 × 10^9) and then dividing that by the distance between them squared r^2.

      q1 and q2 cannot be negative. Sometimes you’ll not be given a charge, and instead the problem will tell you that you have a proton or electron, both of them have the same charge (1.6 × 10^-19 C), but electrons have a negative charge.

      • pewter
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        152 years ago

        q1 and q2 can be negative. The force is the same as if they were positive because -1 x -1 = 1

        • Limitless_screaming
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          42 years ago

          In this case yes, but if q1 was -20μC, q2 was 30μC, and r was 0.5m, then using -20μC as it is would make F equal to -21.6N which is just 21.6N of attraction force between the two charges.

          • Pelicanen
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            52 years ago

            If they are oppositely charged particles, I would expect that there is a force of attraction acting on them, yes.

        • @Pinklink@lemm.ee
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          2 years ago

          But that if both are negative not one pos one neg like the previous commenter gave in their examples, so the true formula has an absolute value in the numerator: |q1Xq2|

    • @Arthur_Leywin@lemmy.ml
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      2 years ago

      G is a constant,

      m is mass,

      d is distance from each other starting from their center of mass,

      This measures gravitational force, F

  • Marxism-Fennekinism
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    212 years ago

    Coulomb had the last laugh though because Newton’s theory has been superseded by relativity.

  • @Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    02 years ago

    If there’s anyone who can, please let me know if the similarities between these two formulas imply a relationship between gravity and electrical attraction or hint at a unified theory, or if it’s just a coincidence or a consequence of something else.

    • @Claidheamh@slrpnk.net
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      2 years ago

      The relation between them is that they’re both forces that scale with the inverse square of the distance between the objects. Any force that scales with the inverse square of distance has pretty much the same general form.

      Another similarity is that both are incomplete, first approximations that describe their respective forces. The more complete versions are Maxwell’s laws for electromagnetism and General Relativity for gravity.