Assumptions - Potential Energy and Potential In A
Uniform Field
The applet simulates the motion of a charged particle in a
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 a uniform electric field, and apart from the force exerted
on the particle by the electric field no other forces are
acting on the particle.
- The electric field is not affected by the particle, i.e.,
any effects that the particle may have on the source charges
producing the field are neglible. Such a particle is called
a test particle. It 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, the source charges
are taken to be at rest so that no kinetic energy of the
source charges needs to be included in the total energy.
- The electric potential V is taken to be equal to
zero at the coordinate origin. Consistent with that, the
particle's potential energy PE in the electric field
is also taken to be zero at the orgin.