Coulomb's law remains tricky to test at home
a day ago
- The author wants to develop fluency in applying physics laws intuitively, like everyday tasks.
- They recall a challenge to compute Earth's radius from first principles and Shankar's advice to think about how laws are tested with real instruments.
- Coulomb's law is questioned: charges must multiply (symmetric), and the exponent a must be 1 (odd integer) due to attraction/repulsion and experimental doubling.
- Testing inverse square law at home is difficult; attempts with an aluminum foil electroscope face issues like charge decay from humidity.
- The author seeks a robust home method to measure inverse square law accurately.