notes prepared by subhankar Karmakar
(the physical quantity written in bold letters are vectors )
ELECTRIC FIELD:
The electric field or electric intensity or the electric field strength E at a point is defined as the force experienced by a unit positive test charge placed at that point, without disturbing the position of source charge.
• Electric field E is a vector quantity.
• SI unit of electric field is N/C.
• Dimension of electric field is
[E] = force/charge = [MLT⁻²]/[AT] = [MLT⁻³A⁻¹]
Electric field is an example of vector field:
As the value of electric field E is different at different point, so we can say each point having a position vector r , therefore, the vector E is a function of position vector of a point. Hence, we can say electric field is an example of vector field.
It says the electric field at any point due to a group of charges is equal to the the vector sum of the electric field produced by the each charge individually at that point, when all other charges are assume to be absent.
