Preview - Modeling Electrostatics Using Netlogo

Part I:

  1. Put the number of positive charges at 50 and hit setup.
  2. Wait for the charges to show up on the screen. Hit go one time and record the Initial Electric Pressure.
  3. Hit the go button several times and watch what the charges do. Keep clicking on the go button until the graph for Electric Pressure levels off.
  4. Record the values from the Electric Pressure Monitor Window at the top of the Electric Pressure graph.
  5. Repeat with different numbers of charges and fill in the table below.

Questions

Please answer the questions below.

Repeat with different numbers of charges and fill in the table below.

What do like charges want to do naturally in a conductor?

Does the Electric Pressure go up or down from the initial value as the go button is pressed?

up
down

Imagine each charge creating an electric field around it. Do like charges naturally move in the direction of their neighbor’s electric field or opposite?

Would you (an external non-conservative force) have to do positive or negative work to move like charges closer together?

Would the charges have more Potential Energy or less Potential Energy if you force them closer together?

How does increasing the amount of charge in a fixed space affect the Electric Pressure?

Notes

These notes will appear on every page in this lesson so feel free to put anything here you'd like to keep track of.