According to Coulomb's law, the force between two point charges is proportional to
- A. the product of the charges and inversely proportional to the distance between them
- B. the product of the charges and inversely proportional to the square of the distance
- C. the sum of the charges and the square of the distance
- D. the square of the product of the charges
Explanation
The inverse square dependence means doubling the separation quarters the force, exactly as in Newton's law of gravitation. The difference is that charges may repel as well as attract, and the electrostatic force between two protons is some 10 to the 36 times stronger than their gravitational attraction. Both laws describe point objects, or spheres treated as points at their centres.
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