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Is gauss law a real law because right hand side of law contains the charges enclosed within the area and left hand side containsal the charges present in the surrounding?

Is gauss law a real law because right hand side of law contains the charges enclosed within the area and left hand side containsal the charges present in the surrounding?

Grade:12

1 Answers

AskiitianExpert Shine
10 Points
14 years ago

Hi

The electric flux through an area is defined as the electric field multiplied by the area of the surface projected in a plane perpendicular to the field. Gauss's Law is a general law applying to any closed surface. It is an important tool since it permits the assessment of the amount of enclosed charge by mapping the field on a surface outside the charge distribution. For geometries of sufficient symmetry, it simplifies the calculation of the electric field.

Another way of visualizing this is to consider a probe of area A which can measure the electric field perpendicular to that area. If it picks any closed surface and steps over that surface, measuring the perpendicular field times its area, it will obtain a measure of the net electric charge within the surface, no matter how that internal charge is configured.

The electric field of a given charge distribution can in principle be calculated using Coulomb's law.  however, that the actual calculations can become quit complicated. An alternative method to calculate the electric field of a given charge distribution relies on a theorem called Gauss' law.

To apply Gauss' law one has to obtain the flux through a closed surface. This flux can be obtained by integrating  over all the area of the surface. The convention used to define the flux as positive or negative is that the angle  is measured with respect to the perpendicular erected on the outside of the closed surface: field lines leaving the volume make a positive contribution, and field lines entering the volume make a negative contribution.

The left hand side integral does not contain the charges present in the surroundings. it is the electric field produced by the charges enclosed. its an easy way to calculate electric field for diff kinds of charge distributions.

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