Day 16 Potential of Continuous Charge Distributionsb

At the beginning of the class, we first started off by estimating the potential from a charged ring. We got that V = kq/r and r is square root and a^2 + b^2 in this case.

In this case, r is sqrt(x^2+4a^2), another is sqrt(2a^2+x^2)

We also found the angle's relationships with a and x. 

We plugged in the previous equation and got V(θ) = kqcosθ/x

We also used excel to find the total potential energy of the charged ring, which the ring is divided into 16 parts. To find the total potential energy, we need to added everything up.

In this picture, we did the actual calculation for calculating the total potential energy. And the result is the same as the excel's.

We used the equations in the picture to find the equation of Ex = KQx/(x^2+a^2)^3/2

We also found that ΔV = KQ/sqrt(x^2+a^2)

We did a problem to calculate the electric potential due to a finite length line-charge.

We used the equation we derived previously and calculated the electric potential.

Then we used excel to calculate the same result.

These three pictures shows the equipotential surfaces where we drew perpendicular lines.

Electric Potential Lab




The pictures above are the equipment we used in this experiment. We used them to measure different voltages at different positions to calculate the Δv/Δx.

Pictures above are the data we recorded during the experiment.

Finally, we used excel to find Δv/Δx.

Conclusion

In today's class, we did various problems on finding electric potential in different cases. We also learned that using excel would be an easier and faster way if there are too many parts in a charged bar. We also learned about equipotential surfaces and did a lab on electric potential.