Gauss' law (electrostatics)

From Citizendium
Revision as of 17:20, 28 March 2008 by imported>Paul Wormer
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This article is developing and not approved.
Main Article
Discussion
Related Articles  [?]
Bibliography  [?]
External Links  [?]
Citable Version  [?]
 
This editable Main Article is under development and subject to a disclaimer.

In physics, more specifically in electromagnetism, Gauss' law is a theorem concerning a surface integral of an electric field. In vacuum it takes the form (in SI units):

Here dS is an vector with length dS, the area of an infinitesimal surface element, and direction perpendicular to the surface element dS. The vector E is the electric field at the position dS, the dot indicates a dot product between the vectors E and dS. The double integral is over a closed surface that envelops a total electric charge Qtot. The constant ε0 is the electric constant. The law is called after the German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss.