A friend of yours works for NASA and wants to hold a charged object at a fixed l
ID: 2201444 • Letter: A
Question
A friend of yours works for NASA and wants to hold a charged object at a fixed location in space in zero gravity. She wishes to construct an electrostatic field that will hold a small test charge in equilibrium (that is, suspend it in stable equilibrium) so that if it moves, there is a restoring force that pushes it back to a fixed location. You can imagine the electric fields as coming from arrangements of charge that are "far away"; her goal is to have the charge itself in a region free of other charges. Use Gauss' law to prove that you cannot construct such a field.Explanation / Answer
Those folks at NASA, they're always trying to recreate the Wheel in the Sky that keeps on turning. How'd you know I had friends at NASA by the way? Did some of my coworkers at the NSA or CIA tell you? Those jokesters, always messin with me... Ok, anyways. Long story short. Gauss created the law to mess with people's minds. He's kind of a megalomaniac/control freak, and a cynic to boot, and cant think of anything but 'weapons and war' all the time. We give him crap all the time about this 'war war war' kick he's on. He seems to forget easily how many time wars we've been through already. One too many hits upside the head I suppose. In any case. The first rule of Gauss law. is there is no gauss law