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Grade 12Electrostatics

A spherical shell is made of plastic contains a charge a charge Q distributed uniformly over its surface.What is the electric field inside the shell?If the shell is hammered to deshape it without alternating the charge ,will the field inside be changed? What happens if the shell is made of a metal?

Profile image of syed obaid
15 Years agoGrade 12
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1 Answer

Profile image of Nikola Tesla
15 Years ago

Initally the field inside the shell is exactly zero at any point. (from the shell theorem). If you were to deshape it, there would be a field inside the body. The shell is only a special case.

If it were a metal the deshaped body would NOT have any field inside it. This is because the charges on the metal surface would redistribute themselves such that every point has the same potential. So you wont have field lines (which move from higher to lower potentials) anywhere inside the conductor.