Charged Insulating Spheres Two small insulating spheres with radius 9.00 Times 1

Question

Charged Insulating Spheres Two small insulating spheres with radius 9.00 Times 10^-2 m are separated by a large center-to-center distance of 0.510 m. One sphere is negatively charged, with net charge -1.80 mu C, and the other sphere is positively charged, with net charge 3.65 mu C. The charge is uniformly distributed within the volume of each sphere. What is the magnitude E of the electric field midway between the spheres? Take the permittivity of free space to be = 8.85 Times 10^-12 C^2/(N middot m^2).

Explanation / Answer

Use the equation   E = (K)/(r^2) * (Q1 + Q2)

Since the electric fields point from the positive charge to the negative charge, you will use (3.65 + 1.8). Do not use negative 1.8 Since the electric fields are "headed in the same direction" just add the two and disregard the negative.
r = the distance from the center of the sphere to the midpoint (0.510/2) = 0.255 m
K = 8.99 * 10^9

So, E = (8.99*10^9)/(0.255^2) * ((3.65 + 1.8) x 10^-6)
E = 7.53 x 10 ^5 N/C
Direction is always from Positive to negative, so Towards the negatively charged sphere

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