Assumptions - Potential Energy and Potential In A
Non-Uniform Electric Field
The applet simulates the motion of a charged particle in a
non-uniform electric field, displays the particle's potential and
kinetic energies, and displays the electric potential at the
particle's location and at other selected locations.
The applet makes the following assumptions:
- A particle of charge q and mass m is moving
in the electric field due to a fixed point charge.
The motion of the particle is assumed to have no effect on
the source charge. The particle tests the field that
exists without the particle's presence.
- Consistent with the previous assumption, when using the
law of energy conservation for the system, no kinetic energy
of the source of the particle needs to be included.
- Apart from the force exerted on the test particle by the
electric field, no other forces are acting on the test
particle.
- The electric potential V is taken to be equal to
zero at points that are an infinite distance away from the
source. Consistent with that, the test particle's potential
energy PE in the electric field is also taken to be
zero when the particle is at an infinite distance from the
source.