Guass’s Law in Electrostatics

Well, What is Guass’s Law in Electrostatics…The answer is, Guass’s law in electrostatics is a tool that helps us simplify our calculations in the process of calculating electric field.

“We already have a law named Coulomb’s Law, for this purpose, then why we need other one.”

Probably this is the first question that comes in mind after reading first paragraph. And that’s good, it shows you are paying attention 🙂 .

Let me go more deep, we know electric field as the field of influence in the charge. And this Field can be calculated by using Coulomb’s Law, but only if charge is point charge or at least the distance of the point of calculation is so much that we can safely consider the charge as point charge. This is the limitation in practical applicability of Coulomb’s Law. In many practical situations calculating electric field becomes hard, boring and tedious process. And there goes the need for Guass’s Law.

Before diving into Guass’s law, I would like to give a real life example that will help in understanding use of this law. What is the traditional way of moving across different storey of building…and the answer comes in mind, of course stairs. We all know that. And we know the difficulty of using stairs when our building goes taller and taller. After a certain level it practically becomes impossible to use stairs. There comes the role of lift. Now we prefer using lift instead of stairs.

Same is with Guass’s Law, when it becomes hard to use Coulomb’s Law, we use Guass’s Law. Though it has it’s own limitations, about which I will discuss later, it simplifies the problem in most of cases. That’s why I called it as a tool.

What is Guass’s Law in Electrostatics

More on this article to be continued…