For a spherically symmetric electric field in vacuum, integrate Gauss's law over a sphere. Its electric flux is , so taking the enclosing radius to infinity gives the displayed total charge, whenever that limit and total charge exist. In particular, a radial field decaying faster than can be nonzero locally while its total source charge is zero. The origin must also be checked: a point charge contributes a nonzero limiting flux as .
Articles by others on the same topic
There are currently no matching articles.