PHY 114 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Field Line
Document Summary
Electric field lines are a useful way to indicate the magnitude and direction of an electric field in space. The direction of the e-field is tangent to the field lines at every point in space. This is referring to every time there is a probe (point) on the diagram, there will be a line tangent to the electric field. The field is strong where there are many field lines and weak where there are few lines. The field lines start on pos. charges and end on neg. charges. If they do, your data has a mistake. Any net (excess) charge must reside on the surface of a conductor. If you touch your probe to a conductor, it should read 0. Just outside the surface of a conductor, the electric field must be perpendicular to the surface. Any excess charge on the surface of a conductor will accumulate where the surface is highly curved (i. e. a sharp point)
