5 ms·
E = q2 F basically motivates & defines the electric field from first principles by normalizing the force against the charge of the particle experiencing it. It
by dataflow 6y ago
E = q2 F basically motivates & defines the electric field from first principles by normalizing the force against the charge of the particle experiencing it. It relates the object to the properties of its surrounding space.
D = q1 / 4 pi R^2 describes the effect the first particle has on space at the location of the second particle. It relates the subject to the properties of its surrounding space.
And D = E epsilon of course tells you how those quantities relate to each other. It's basically the verb. Together these describe how two stationary particles interact with each other electrically. They link the subject and object together. Think of it as subject -> verb -> object.
The motivation for all of is to decouple things so we can reason about them independently.
Hopefully that's lucid and intuitive?
- Koshkin 6y agoYou would think that (oh the curse of knowledge!), but there is still something that muddies the waters here. It is the missing relation between the physical electric field which is what the free charges actually generate and the (still mysterious) displacement field. This makes your explanation more abstract that it needs to be. The "D = E epsilon" that you mention in passing is in fact another source of confusion, because it is not clear whether E is what the free charges ("q1") generate or it is what acts on the probe ("q2").