- #1
Tiago3434
Hi guys, I was reading about electromagnetism, specifically about the application of Gauss' Law to an infinite charged sheet, and how its electric field doesn't depend on the distance from the sheet. I think I have finally managed to wrap my mind around the concept intuitively, based on one of Feynman's explanations: when you take a point P close to the sheet, the electric field due to the closest point of P on the sheet is really strong, and the electric field (vectors) of all other point are almost parallel to the sheet, so they end up canceling each other.
When you take another point farther away, the electric field due to the point closest to such point is weaker, but the electric fields due to the other points are almost perpendicular to the sheet, so they end up adding, and this mechanism (intuitively) would explain why the electric field is constant.
But wouldn't this explanation also be true for an infinite charged line, making it distance-independent? Is there any intuition as to why the electric field of an infinite sheet is distance irrelevant, but for an infinite line it isn't? Thanks in advance.
When you take another point farther away, the electric field due to the point closest to such point is weaker, but the electric fields due to the other points are almost perpendicular to the sheet, so they end up adding, and this mechanism (intuitively) would explain why the electric field is constant.
But wouldn't this explanation also be true for an infinite charged line, making it distance-independent? Is there any intuition as to why the electric field of an infinite sheet is distance irrelevant, but for an infinite line it isn't? Thanks in advance.