Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-physics-2-paper-of-the-university-of-oxford/2015/1/solution
Past exam of the physics 2 paper of the University of Oxford 2015 1 Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-25
Take the electric potential to vanish at infinity. The distance from the centre to each point charge is half the diagonal of a polygon of the square, namely . The superposition principle for the electric potential therefore gives, for four charges ,Strictly, specifying only the magnitude of each electric charge leaves its sign undetermined. For signed charges , the general answer is . For example, two positive and two negative charges of equal magnitude give zero electric potential at the centre. The boxed result uses the usual interpretation that all four charges have the same positive sign.
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