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The law of superposition allows Coulomb's law to be extended to include any number of point charges. The force acting on a point charge due to a system of point charges is simply the vector addition of the individual forces acting alone on that point charge due to each one of the charges.
This is the basis for Coulomb's law, which states that, for stationary charges, the electric field varies with the source charge and varies inversely with the square of the distance from the source. This means that if the source charge were doubled, the electric field would double, and if you move twice as far away from the source, the field at ...
Coulomb's law states that: [5] ... can be calculated by summing over all the contributions due to individual source particles is an example of the superposition ...
When talking about electrostatic potential energy, time-invariant electric fields are always assumed so, in this case, the electric field is conservative and Coulomb's law can be used. Using Coulomb's law, it is known that the electrostatic force F and the electric field E created by a discrete point charge Q are radially directed from Q.
However, Gauss's law can be proven from Coulomb's law if it is assumed, in addition, that the electric field obeys the superposition principle. The superposition principle states that the resulting field is the vector sum of fields generated by each particle (or the integral, if the charges are distributed smoothly in space).
The term "scientific law" is traditionally associated with the natural sciences, though the social sciences also contain laws. [11] For example, Zipf's law is a law in the social sciences which is based on mathematical statistics. In these cases, laws may describe general trends or expected behaviors rather than being absolutes.
The result of the superposition approximation is always recovered at larger distances but also for p = 1/2 at all distances. The latter fact explains why the superposition approximation can be very accurate even at small separations. Surfaces regulate their charge and not infrequently the actual regulation parameter is not far away from 1/2.
[36]: 519 The properties of the electrostatic force were that it varied as an inverse square law directed in the radial direction, was both attractive and repulsive (there was intrinsic polarity), was independent of the mass of the charged objects, and followed the superposition principle. Coulomb's law unifies all these observations into one ...