Education Technology


Physics: Coulomb's Law

by Texas Instruments - Simulation Lesson

Objectives

  • Students will explore the force two charges exert on each other.
  • Students will observe how the force depends upon the magnitude of the two charges and the distance separating them.
  • Students will develop the equation for Coulomb’s law using their observations.

Vocabulary

  • attract
  • charge
  • Coulomb (used as a unit)
  • distance
  • force
  • inverse square
  • magnitude
  • Newton (used as a unit)
  • ratio of forces
  • repel

About the Lesson

This lesson has students explore Coulomb’s law by manipulating the magnitude of two charges and the distance separating them.
As a result, students will:

  • Observe that charges with like signs repel and charges with opposite signs attract.
  • Relate the magnitude of the force the charges exert on each other to the product of the two charges and to the inverse square of the distance separating them.
  • Develop the equation for Coulomb’s law.

This activity was created using Lua. Learn more about Lua in TI-Nspire here.