Phy 102 Electrostatics Lec 1

Electrostatics is the branch of physics that studies electric charges at rest, encompassing electric charges, electric fields, and electric potential. Electric charge is a fundamental scalar property of matter that causes objects to experience forces in electric or magnetic fields, existing in two types (positive and negative) with like charges repelling and unlike charges attracting. Charge is conserved, meaning it cannot be created or destroyed but only transferred between objects, and is quantized in discrete packets of elementary charge (1.602 × 10⁻¹⁹ C). The three methods of charging a body are friction (rubbing), conduction (direct contact), and induction (bringing a charged object near without touching).