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Physics Lesson 14.5.3 - Analogy between Gravitation and Electricity recap
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Welcome to our Physics lesson on Analogy between Gravitation and Electricity recap, this is the third lesson of our suite of physics lessons covering the topic of Electric Potential, you can find links to the other lessons within this tutorial and access additional physics learning resources below this lesson.
Analogy between Gravitation and Electricity recap
As stated above, when a positive charge moves in the direction of electric field, the electric forces do positive work. As a result, the electric potential energy of the positive charge decreases. This is similar to when a mass is falling from a height h. In this case, the gravity does positive work and therefore, the gravitational potential energy decreases.
On the other hand, when a force is exerted in the opposite direction of field lines, some work must be done by an external force against the electric field, which brings an increase in the electric potential energy of the charge, just like when we lift an object at a height h, where we increase the GPE of object by doing work against gravity on it.
Electric potential is similar to gravitational potential φ, which is a concept that is not very common in daily life. Using the analogy between gravitation and electricity, we can find the formula of gravitational potential at a distance r from a body of mass M:
where G is the gravitational constant.
You have reached the end of Physics lesson 14.5.3 Analogy between Gravitation and Electricity recap. There are 8 lessons in this physics tutorial covering Electric Potential, you can access all the lessons from this tutorial below.
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- Continuing learning electrostatics - read our next physics tutorial: Electric Flux. Gauss Law
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