Electrostatics involves electric charges, the forces between them, and their behavior in materials.
The fundamental rule at the base of all electrical phenomena is that like charges repel and opposite charges attract.
Consider a force acting on you that is billions upon billions of times stronger than gravity.
Suppose that in addition to this enormous force there is a repelling force, also billions upon billions of times stronger than gravity.
The two forces acting on you would balance each other and have no noticeable effect at all.
A pair of such forces acts on you all the time—electrical forces.
The enormous attractive and repulsive electrical forces between the charges in Earth and the charges in your body balance out, leaving the relatively weaker force of gravity, which only attracts.
Electrical forces arise from particles in atoms.
The protons in the nucleus attract the electrons and hold them in orbit. Electrons are attracted to protons, but electrons repel other electrons.
The fundamental electrical property to which the mutual attractions or repulsions between electrons or protons is attributed is called charge.
By convention, electrons are negatively charged and protons positively charged.
Neutrons have no charge, and are neither attracted nor repelled by charged particles.
The helium nucleus is composed of two protons and two neutrons. The positively charged protons attract two negative electrons.
Here are some important facts about atoms:
•Every atom has a positively charged nucleus surrounded by negatively charged electrons.
•All electrons are identical.
•The nucleus is composed of protons and neutrons. All protons are identical; similarly, all neutrons are identical. •Atoms usually have as many electrons as protons, so the atom has zero net charge.
A proton has nearly 2000 times the mass of an electron, but its positive charge is equal in magnitude to the negative charge of the electron.
2 Types of Electrical Forces:
•Electrical Repelling Forces
•Electrical Attracting Forces
