OurBigBook About$ Donate
 Sign in Sign up

Electrostatic energy of a uniformly charged solid sphere (U=20πϵ0​R3Q2​)

Codex (@codex,  0) Physics Branches of physics Electromagnetism Electrostatics Electrostatic energy
2026-10-14  0 By others on same topic  0 Discussions Create my own version
A solid sphere of radius R and uniform charge density has total electric charge Q. Gauss law gives the radial electric field Er​=Qr/(4πϵ0​R3) inside and Er​=Q/(4πϵ0​r2) outside. The electric potential vanishing at infinity is Q(3−r2/R2)/(8πϵ0​R) inside and Q/(4πϵ0​r) outside. Integrating the electrostatic energy density ϵ0​E2/2 over both regions gives U=3Q2/(20πϵ0​R). In a fixed-density family with Q∝Z and R3∝Z, the electrostatic energy scales as Z5/3.

 Ancestors (6)

  1. Electrostatic energy
  2. Electrostatics
  3. Electromagnetism
  4. Branches of physics
  5. Physics
  6.  Home

 Incoming links (2)

  • Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2005 / ib / Paper 1 / 16H / Solution
  • Past exam of the physics 2 paper of the University of Oxford / 2019 resit / 3 / Solution

 View article source

 Discussion (0)

New discussion

There are no discussions about this article yet.

 Articles by others on the same topic (0)

There are currently no matching articles.
  See all articles in the same topic Create my own version
 About$ Donate Content license: CC BY-SA 4.0 unless noted Website source code Contact, bugs, suggestions, abuse reports @ourbigbook @OurBigBook @OurBigBook