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PhiNotPi's avatar

Electrodynamics question- Can the electric field from one charged plane be felt through another charged plane?

Asked by PhiNotPi (12686points) January 18th, 2011

You have two conducting charged plates parallel to each other and separated from each other by a small gap. For simplicity, we can consider them to be two charged planes. One plane has a very strong, positive charge. The other, a weak, negative charge. If you are far enough from the negative plane (inverse square law means that if you are too close, the field from the negative will be very strong), will you be able to feel the electric field from the positive plane through the negative plane? And no, this is NOT homework.

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2 Answers

6rant6's avatar

At some point, as you power up the positive plate, electrons abandon the negative plate for the positive. And in order to maintain electrons on the negative plate, you have to keep pumping charge into it?

So it’s not really a static problem, but a dynamic one? And there is some large unnamed source of electrons charging up the negative plate.

Seems to me this is two different problems – one below the threshold of electron exchange between the two (I’m guessing there would be no charge perceived by the observer) and the other when electron exchange is happening, in which case (again guessing) It would depend on the relative strengths of the three objects – the two planes and the charging device.

LuckyGuy's avatar

Since we are far enough away from both plates that invoerse square rule does not apply, can’t we simplify the problem to be a single plate with the charge being the sum of the two?
if plate A is 1 coulomb and plate B is -1 coulomb. If you are sufficiently far away I’d expect the field to be zero.
Hmm…Let’s make one plate oscillate. Does it still hold true? I’m thinking yes.

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