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Students' confusions about the electric field of a uniformly moving charge

Physics Education 2023-11-01 v1 Classical Physics

Abstract

In light of a recent direct experimental confirmation of a Lorentz contraction of Coulomb field (an electric field of a point charge in a uniform motion), we revisit some common confusions related to it, to be mindful of in teaching the subject. These include the questions about a radial nature of the field, a role of the retardation effect due to a finite speed of information transfer and some issues related to a depiction of Coulomb field by means of the Lorentz contracted field lines.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2310.19312,
  title  = {Students' confusions about the electric field of a uniformly moving charge},
  author = {Petar Žugec and Davor Horvatić and Ivica Smolić},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2310.19312},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

10 pages, 5 figures