Assemble the spherically symmetric charge distribution by adding thin concentric shells, with the final charge density kept uniform. When the assembled radius is , the enclosed electric charge and the next increment areThe electric potential of the already assembled material at that shell is . Consequently its assembly work is , and the electrostatic energy of a uniformly charged solid sphere isThere is no extra factor of one half in this assembly integral: each pair of charge elements has already been counted exactly once, when the later element was brought in. A solid uniformly charged insulator has this value; a conducting sphere has its electric charge on the surface and instead has electrostatic energy .
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