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Re: superposition



Don,

I'm not sure you have to rely on the "just because" answer for
superposition. If you have two charges, 3q and 2q, the force is 3 times
as big as from 1q and 2q. But the 3q might just be 3 separate charges of
q each. So the force from 3 charges is the same as just adding them up.
I think that if you accept Coulomb's law, then you accept superposition.

I don't know that this is full of universal truth--I've taken the
simplest case where all the charges are together. But I think that
looking at the charges as a sum makes superposition seem reasonable to
students.

Richard
--
Richard L. Taylor
J. J. Pearce H. S. Physics
Richardson, TX 75080
http://www.richardson.k12.tx.us/schools/phs/Academics/Physics/Physics.html


JFDWG <jfdwg@acad1.alaska.edu> wrote:
Can anyone provide a way that I can justify superposition to
students? Usually we ask students to believe us that adding
electric field vectors from individual charges sum without
accounting for the interaction among the charges.