UNIT 1

ELECTROSTATICS

Electric Charge and its Properties

1. What is SI unit, emu and c.g.s. unit of electrostatic charge?
2. How are coulomb and stat coulomb units related to each other?
3. How many electrons must be removed form a conductor so that it acquires a charge of 3.5 nC.
4. Give two points of distinction between charge and mass?
5. What is the cause of charging? Is mass of a body affected on charging?
6. Can ever photons have a charge? If not, why?
7. A copper sphere of mass 2g contains nearly 2 X 1022 electrons. The change on the nucleus of each atom is
29e. What fraction of the electrons must be removed from the sphere to give it a charge of +2 µC? NCERT
Coulomb’s Law
8. Consider the charges q, q, and –q placed at the vertices of an equilateral triangle of side L ,What is the
force on each charge?
9. Does Coulomb’s law of electric force obey Newton’s third law of motion?
10. How is the force between two charges affected when dielectric constant of the medium in which they are
held increases?
11. Two point charges of +2 μC and +6 μC repel each other with a force of 12N. If each is given an additional
charge of - 4 μC, what will be nature and magnitude of new force?
12. Two point charges lie on the x-axis. A charge of +9 μC is at the origin, and a charge of -4 μC is at
x=10cm. At what position x would a third charge q3 be in equilibrium? Does your answer to part a depend
on whether q3 is positive or negative? Explain.
13. Two charges, q and 4q, are 1 m apart. What are the location, magnitude and sign of a third charge, Q,
placed so that the entire system is at equilibrium NCERT
14. Two similarly and equally charged identical metal spheres A and B repel each other with a force of
2 x 10-5 N. A third identical uncharged sphere C is touched with A and then placed at a midpoint between
A and B. Calculate the net electric force on C NCERT
15. Coulomb’s law for electrostatic force between two point charges and Newton’s law for gravitational force
between two stationary point masses, both have inverse-square dependence on the distance between the
charges/masses. (a) Compare the strength of these forces by determining the ratio of their magnitudes (i)
for an electron and a proton and (ii) for two protons. (b) Estimate the accelerations of electron and proton
due to the electrical force of their mutual attraction when they are 1 Å (= 10-10 m) apart?
(mp = 1.67 × 10–27 kg, me = 9.11 × 10–31 kg) NCERT
16. Four point charges qA = 2 μC, qB = –5 μC, qC = 2 μC, and qD = –5 μC are located at the corners of a
square ABCD of side 10 cm. What is the force on a charge of 1 μC placed at the centre of the square?
NCERT

Electric Field
17. Two charges +5µC and +20µC are placed 15 cm apart. At what point on the line joining the two charges is
the electric field zero?
18. ABCD is a square of side 5m. Charges of +50C, -50C and +50C are placed at A,C and D respectively .
Find the magnitude of resultant electric field at B.
19. Five charges, q each are placed at the corners of a regular pentagon of side ‘a’ (Fig.)
(a) (i) What will be the electric field at O, the centre of the pentagon?
(ii) What will be the electric field at O if the charge from one of the corners (say A) is removed?
(iii) What will be the electric field at O if the charge q at A is replaced by –q?
(b) How would your answer to (a) be affected if pentagon is replaced by n-sided regular polygon with
charge q at each of its corners? NCERT
 20. Fig shows tracks of charged particles crossing uniform electric field with same velocities along with
horizontal. Give the signs of the three charges. Which particle has the highest charge to mass ratio?

Electric Field Lines

21. Why electric field lines cannot form closed loops?
22. Sketch the electric field lines for a uniformly charged hollow cylinder as shown.

23. Draw the electric lines of force when a positive point charge is placed near the isolated conducting sphere.
24. Fig. shows the electric field lines around three point charges A, B and C.
a. Which charges are positive?
b. Which charge has the largest magnitude? Why?
c. In which region or regions of the picture could the electric field be zero? Justify your answer. near
A, (ii) near B, (iii) near C, (iv) nowhere
Electric Dipole
26. Two dipoles, made from charges ±q and ±Q, respectively, have equal dipole moments. Give the (i) ratio
between the ‘separations’ of these two pairs of charges (ii) angle between the dipole axis of these two
dipoles.
27. An electric dipole consists of two opposite charges each of magnitude 6 X 10-8 coulomb separated by
6.0cm. The dipole is placed in an external electric filed of 5 X 10-5 NC-1 .
What maximum torque will the field exert on the dipole? How much work will an external agent have to do
in turning the dipole through 180o, starting from the position ɵ= 0o?
28. A system has two charges qa and qb; qa = 2.5 X 10-7 C and qb = -2.5 X 10-7 C located at the points
A (0, 0, -15cm) and B (0, 0, +15cm). What is the total charge and electric dipole moment? NCERT
Electric Flux and Gauss’ Law
34. An electric dipole of dipole moment 20×10−6 Cm is enclosed by a closed surface. What is the net flux
coming out of the surface? NCERT
Electric Potential and Potential Energy
35. Two charges 3 X 10-8 C and -2 X 10-8 C are located 15 cm apart. At what points on the line joining the two
charges is the electrical potential to be zero.
36. A cube of side b has a charge q at each of its vertices. Determine the potential and electric field due to this
charge array at the centre of the cube.
37. A metal wire is bent into a circle of radius 10 cm . It is given a charge of 200μ C which spreads on it
uniformly. Calculate the electric potential at its centre and at a point at a distance 10 cm from the center.
38. A charge of 24μC is given to a hollow sphere of radius 0.2m. Find the potential
i. at the surface of the sphere, and
ii. at a distance of 0.1 m from the centre of the sphere.
iii. at the centre
39. What is the work done in moving a charge of 100μC through a distance of 1cm along the equatorial line of
dipole?
40. If V equals a constant throughout a given region of space, what can you say about E in that region? How
many electron volts make one joule?
41. If E equals zero at a given point, must V equal zero for that point? Give some example to prove your
answer.
42. What is the S.I. unit of the line integral of electric field?
43. The potential at point A is 10 volts and at point B is 20 volts. What is the direction of electric field b/w A
and B.
44. Four charges are placed at the vertices of a square of side d as shown in the figure.(i) Find the work done to
put together this arrangement. (ii) A charge q0is brought to the center E of the square, the four charges
being held fixed at its corners. How much extra work is needed to do this?

45. If one of the two electrons of a H2 molecule is removed, we get a hydrogen molecular ion H2+ In the ground
state of an H2+ the two protons are separated by roughly 1.5 Å, and the electron is roughly 1 Å from each
proton. Determine the potential energy of the system. Specify your choice of the zero of potential
energy.NCERT
46. In a hydrogen atom, the electron and proton are bound at a distance of about 0.53 Å:
a. Estimate the potential energy of the system in eV, taking the zero of the potential energy at infinite
separation of the electron from proton. (b) What is the minimum work required to free the electron,
given that its kinetic energy in the orbit is half the magnitude of potential energy obtained in (a)? (c)
What are the answers to (a) and (b) above if the zero of potential energy is taken at 1.06 Å
separation?NCERT
47. Figures (a) and (b) show the field lines of a positive and negative point charge respectively.NCERT
 a. Give the signs of the potential difference VP – VQ; VB – VA.
b. Give the sign of the potential energy difference of a small negative charge between the points Q and
P; A and B. Give the sign of the work done by the field in moving a small positive charge from Q to
P.
c. Give the sign of the work done by the external agency in moving a small negative charge from B to
A.
d. Does the kinetic energy of a small negative charge increase or decrease in going from B to A?
48. The electrostatic potential on the surface of a charged conducting sphere is 100V. What is the electric
intensity and electric potential at centre of sphere
Which of the following is a correct statement?
49. There point charges of are kept at the vertices, A, B and C 2μ C, -3 μ C, -3 μ C respectively of an
equilateral triangle of side 20 cm as shown in the figure. What should be the sign and magnitude of the
charge to be placed at the mid-point (M) of side BC so that the charge at A remains in equilibrium?

50. What is the work done in moving a point charge over an equipotential surface?
51. What is the work done by the field of a nucleus in a complete circular orbit of electron? What if the orbit is
elliptical?
52. The electric field at a point due to a point charge is 30 N/C, and the electric potential at that point is 15 J/C.
Calculate the distance of the point from the charge and the magnitude of the charge.
Conductors and Dielectric
58. Explain why the polarization of a dielectric reduces the electric field inside the dielectric.
59. The dielectric constant of a conductor can be taken as infinitely large. Why
60. What is the effect of temperature on dielectric constant?
61. Derive relation between dielectric constant and electric susceptibility.
Capacitor
63. What is meant by the capacitance of a capacitor?
64. Define the farad.
65. Is it possible for a metal sphere of 1 cm radius to hold a charge of 1C?
66. A 60 PF capacitor is connected to a 20V battery and is charged to 20V. How many electrons are transferred
from one plate to the other?
67. Two spheres of silver of same radii, one solid and the other hollow are charged to the same potential.
Which one has greater charge?
68. Fig. Shows the variations of voltage V across the plates of the capacitors A and B versus charge Q stored
on them. Which of the two capacitors has higher capacitance? Give reason for your answer.
 69. On what factor does the capacitance of a capacitor depends?
70. When the plates of a charged capacitor are brought near, what is the effect on potential difference between
plates? Explain with reason.
71. Find the length of the paper used in a capacitor of capacitance 2 µF if the dielectric constant of the paper is
2.5 and its width and thickness are 50mm and 0.05mm respectively.
72. Two insulated charged spheres of radii 10 cm and 20 cm having same charge are connected by a conductor
and then they are separated. Which of two spheres will carry more charge?
73. The distance between the plates of a parallel plate capacitor is d. A metal plate of thickness d/2 is placed
between the plates, what will be the new capacity?
74. A slab of material of dielectric constant has the same area as the plates of a parallel plate capacitor but has
a thickness 3d / 4, where d is the separation of the plates. How is the capacitance changed when the slab is
inserted between the plates?
75. A parallel plate capacitor with air between the plates has a capacitance of 8µF. What will be the
capacitance if the distance between the plates is doubled and the space between them is filled with a
substance of dielectric constant K=6?
76. Two parallel plate capacitor X and Y have same area of plates and same separation between them. X has
air between the plates whereas Y has a dielectric of constant k=4
i. Calculate capacitance of each capacitor if equivalent capacitance is4 μF.
ii. Calculate potential difference between the plates of X and Y.
iii. What is the ratio of electrostatic energy stored in X and Y.
77. A capacitor of capacitance 5 μF is connected to a 6 V supply. What charge is stored in the capacitor?
78. A 400 pF capacitor carries a charge of 2.5 x 10-8 C. What is the potential difference across the plates of the
capacitor?
79. A 4700 μF capacitor is connected as shown in the circuit diagram. When it is fully charged:
1. What is the charge on the positive plate of the capacitor?
2. What is the potential difference across the capacitor?
3. How many additional electrons are on the negative plate?
80. A resistor of 100 Ω is now added to the circuit as shown in the second diagram.
4. What effect does this have on the time to charge up the capacitor?
5. What is the final charge on the plates?
6. What is the final potential difference across the capacitor?
83. Two capacitors 4 µ and 6 µF are connected in series with a 6V battery. Which will have more potential
difference?

Combination of capacitors-
84. The capacitors C1, and C2, having plates of area A each, are connected in series, as shown. Compare the
capacitance of this combination with the capacitor C3, again having plates of area A each, but ‘made up’ as
shown in the figure.
 85. Find the charge on and potential across each of the capacitors.

86. The effective capacitance of two capacitors is 3ìF, when they are connected in series and parallel
respectively, Compute the capacitance of each capacitor.
88. What is the equivalent capacity of the network given below?

90. An electrical technician requires a capacitance of 2 µF in a circuit across a potential difference of 1 kV. A
large number of 1 µF capacitors are available to him each of which can withstand a potential difference of
not more than 400 V. Suggest a possible arrangement that requires the minimum number of capacitors
Sharing of charges/energy stored
91. Keeping the voltage of the charging source constant, what will be the percentage change in the energy
stored in a parallel plate capacitor if the separation between its plates were to be decreased by 10%.
92. A capacitor is charged through a potential difference of 200 V, when 0.1 C charge is stored in it. How
much energy will it release, when it is discharged
93. In what form is the energy stored in a charged capacitor?
94. Two parallel plate capacitor X and Y have same area of plates and same separation between them. X has
air between the plates whereas Y has a dielectric of constant k=4 Calculate capacitance of each capacitor if
equivalent capacitance is4 μF. Calculate potential difference between the plates of X and Y .What is the
ratio of electrostatic energy stored in X and Y.
95. The plates of a parallel plate capacitor have an area of 90 cm2 each and are separated by 2.5 mm. The
capacitor is charged by connecting it to a 400 V supply. (a) How much electrostatic energy is stored by the
capacitor?(b) View this energy as stored in the electrostatic field between the plates, and obtain the energy
per unit volume u. Hence arrive at a relation between u and the magnitude of electric field E between the
plates.
96. Show that the force on each plate of a parallel plate capacitor has a magnitude equal to (½) QE, where Q is
the charge on the capacitor, and E is the magnitude of electric field between the plates. Explain the origin
of the factor ½.