Solving for Unknown Force Equilibrium (E&M)
Wow! Yet another Electricity and Magnetism post. While reviewing basic electric charges and forces, I found the problem below:
Two positive point charges
and are at and respectively, and free to move. A third charge is placed so that the entire three-charge system is in static equilibrium. What are the magnitude, sign, and -coordinate of the third charge?
The following is my approach to solving this problem:
First, we must narrow down the possible positions of the third point charge. We notice that any position not collinear with the other two charges with create non-zero
Next, we can notice that any position that is not in between each of the two original charges will cause non-zero
Knowing the above, we can set up a system of equations:
Where
Combining both the equations due to their equal right sides, we get
Which can be simplified to
Substituting