Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-physics-2-paper-of-the-university-of-oxford/2015/2/a/solution

Gauss's law states that the outward electric flux through a closed surface is the enclosed electric charge divided by the vacuum permittivity:
In electrostatics, the electric field is the negative gradient of the electrostatic potential, . Substitution into the differential equation form of Gauss's law gives Poisson's equation . Consequently, in a region containing no charge density,
which is Laplace's equation. Charges on the bounding conductors enter through the boundary conditions; they need not vanish for Laplace's equation to hold inside the empty gap.

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