What is Gausss law?
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Textbook Solutions for Physics for Scientists and Engineers: A Strategic Approach, Standard Edition (Chs 1-36)
Question
The electric field must be zero inside a conductor in electrostatic equilibrium, but not inside an insulator. It turns out that we can still apply Gausss law to a Gaussian surface that is entirely within an insulator by replacing the right-hand side of Gausss law, Qin /P0, with Qin /P, where P is the permittivity of the material. (Technically, P0 is called the vacuum permittivity.) Suppose that a 50 nC point charge is surrounded by a thin, 32-cm-diameter spherical rubber shell and that the electric field strength inside the rubber shell is 2500 N/C. What is the permittivity of rubber?
Solution
The first step in solving 24 problem number 78 trying to solve the problem we have to refer to the textbook question: The electric field must be zero inside a conductor in electrostatic equilibrium, but not inside an insulator. It turns out that we can still apply Gausss law to a Gaussian surface that is entirely within an insulator by replacing the right-hand side of Gausss law, Qin /P0, with Qin /P, where P is the permittivity of the material. (Technically, P0 is called the vacuum permittivity.) Suppose that a 50 nC point charge is surrounded by a thin, 32-cm-diameter spherical rubber shell and that the electric field strength inside the rubber shell is 2500 N/C. What is the permittivity of rubber?
From the textbook chapter Gausss Law you will find a few key concepts needed to solve this.
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